With the news that China and South Korea have broadly agreed to sign a free-trade agreement (FTA) causing waves in Taiwan, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) challenged independent rival Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) to a one-on-one debate on the city’s economic issues.
At a press conference yesterday, Lien said that the impending agreement between China and South Korea would greatly harm Taiwanese interests.
Once the deal is in effect, the nation’s GDP will likely drop by 0.5 percent, equivalent to a loss of NT$59.5 billion (US$1.9 billion), while the domestic steel, equipment manufacturing, car sales and LCD industries would be at risk of being negatively affected, Lien predicted.
Lien said that Taipei will be greatly affected in terms of its digital commerce sector, network companies and banking industry, adding that the middle class and the younger generation would be the ones feeling the bite the most.
The KMT candidate said a Taipei mayor must help each sector of the local economy and ensure their stability, adding that if elected, he would ask all Taipei lawmkaers to appeal to the Legislative Yuan to swiftly pass legislation pertaining to cross-strait trade and economic affairs, presumably to counterbalance the effects of the Seoul-Beijing FTA.
The nation’s cities must also start signing economic cooperation agreements with their Asian counterparts, as this would enable Taiwanese cities to step up their cooperation with major Asian hubs, such as Shanghai, Tokyo and Bangkok, in the areas of tourism, information technology, culture and education.
Lien said that the upcoming elections on Nov. 29 are more than just a simple decision between himself and Ko, they are about deciding if the Republic of China can be one step ahead of South Korea.
He added that he wanted to debate with Ko on the issues surrounding the China-South Korea agreement, as well as on issues about Taipei’s finances and economy, adding that if Ko did not wish the debate to be a formal one, they could arrange for it to be held in a more relaxed setting with a casual format.
Lien said that he would leave the time and place up to Ko to decide should he choose to accept the invitation.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,