The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said that a proposal to allow Chinese to make transit stops in Taiwan en route to other nations would not be included in the agenda of the 11th cross-strait summit to be held next week.
The council made the remarks at a Taipei news conference on the upcoming summit between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), in Fuzhou, China, from Monday to Wednesday next week.
“We had hoped to be able to make public a consensus forged by both sides of the Taiwan Strait on the [transit stops] issue at the approaching summit. However, given that we have yet to settle on the issues of greatest concern to each side, a consensus might not be reached before the meeting,” MAC Deputy Minister Lin Chu-chia (林祖嘉) told reporters.
Lin would not be drawn on questions over whether the “delayed publication of common opinions” meant the agreement reached between MAC Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) during a meeting in Kinmen in May was a “bounced check.”
The pair said they would forge a consensus on the transit stops issue in the middle of this year and make public their opinions at the summit.
“Our side wants to separate the issues of transit stops and optimizing flight routes across the strait, given that the former is common international practice and can be implemented instantly, while the latter requires more time for discussion,” Lin said.
“Unfortunately, the mainland [China] aspires to see results on both issues,” Lin said, adding that the council would nonetheless continue its endeavor to obtain a green light for Taipei’s cross-strait layovers proposal.
Regarding an agreement on the avoidance of double taxation, which is to be signed at the summit, a Ministry of Finance official said the agreement is expected to alleviate the tax burden of Taiwanese businesspeople and corporations in China and increase Taiwan’s appeal to foreign investors.
Director of International Finance Sung Hsiu-ling (宋秀玲) said that after the agreement takes effect, it is estimated to reduce the tax burden on China-based Taiwanese companies by NT$4 billion (US$122.5 million) and bring the government additional annual tax revenue of between NT$8.1 billion and NT$13.3 billion.
As for a cross-strait aviation safety agreement also to be inked at the summit, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wu Meng-feng (吳盟分) said it would allow aviation personnel on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to examine and repair aircraft belonging to the other side.
“This will significantly reduce airline companies’ operating costs, boost their global competitiveness and decrease the frequency of delayed flights due to mechanical problems,” Wu said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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