Taiwan’s high standing in the just released “Index of Economic Freedom” should help it win a place in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a leading US economist said.
“There is no question that adding Taiwan into the mix would add a lot of support for a more liberal and a better and a higher standard trade agreement,” said Terry Miller, director for trade at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. “Taiwan is a great economic success story.”
Miller was speaking at the release of this year’s index report at a meeting in the foundation on Tuesday.
A report on Taiwan’s place in the index — the 14th-freest economy in the world — appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Taipei Times.
Miller said Taiwan had recorded a “great rise” in economic freedom over the past five years and that, as a result, it was experiencing higher growth rates and better social outcomes.
He said the foundation was “so pleased with Taiwan’s record” that it planned to make Taipei its first stop on an international tour to promote the index.
“We want to recognize the great progress that Taiwan has achieved,” Miller said.
He said the foundation was in favor of the widest possible participation of countries in the TPP.
However, Miller said there was a danger of delay in bringing the trade pact to a conclusion if too many different nations were involved in the opening negotiations.
“The more countries you involve in a negotiation, the harder it becomes to bring that negotiation to a conclusion,” he said.
Miller added that there was some “urgency” in bringing the first round of TPP negotiations to a close.
He said that Taiwan may be able to join TPP in a second round of negotiations, after the first round of agreements are adopted.
Taiwanese Representative to the US Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) said that membership in the proposed TPP between the US, Japan and 10 other countries is a “must” for Taiwan.
The TPP would be the biggest free-trade agreement since the North American Free Trade Agreement accounting for 40 percent of global economic output and more than one-third of world trade.
Shen says that membership was “vital” for Taiwan to keep up with trade competition, particularly from South Korea.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater