Five factories illegally built on farmland out of 17 that have been marked for demolition were torn down last month, Council of Agriculture (COA) Deputy Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said on Thursday, adding that the council would announce a second demolition list next month.
The Executive Yuan in October last year approved the council’s plan to remove 17 illegal structures on farmland in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and other government agencies.
Five buildings, two of which were still under construction, have been demolished, council data showed.
However, 12 other illegal structures — eight in Changhua County, three in Kaohsiung and one in Yunlin County — remain standing, even though their owners have been fined.
“It is impossible to remove all illegal factories built on 13,000 hectares of appropriated farmland,” Chen said in response to media queries on Thursday.
The council’s plan is aimed at preventing further loss of farmland, Chen said.
However, more thorough protection could only be achieved when the interior ministry implements the National Spatial Planning Act (國土計畫法), he said.
The aims to rezone land into four categories: national reserve, marine resource, agricultural development and urban development areas.
An implementation strategy for the act is to be prepared by the interior ministry.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) proposed three “ways out” for illegal factories that have formed large clusters in a certain region.
First, factories causing serious pollution should be relocated to proper industrial parks; second, factories that process agricultural products could be redesignated as part of agricultural development areas; and third, local governments could apply to have the sites of illegal plants they deem of economic value changed into urban development areas, he said.
That does not mean unlawful plants would become legalized automatically, Hua said, adding that proper urban planning procedures, sewage construction and feedback procedures would be required.
Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan researcher Wu Chi-jung (吳其融) said that he largely agreed with Hua’s proposals, but that the government should first reduce pollution of farmland and review land use at industrial parks, where many sites are purchased but remain unused for years.
Asked whether the third proposal would allow local governments to cover up illegal businesses, Wu said it would be an opportunity to train local governments to enhance their administrative efficiency.
For example, the Changhua County Government has often turned a blind eye to reports of illegal structures on farmland, but it should have helped those businesses to become legitimate operations, he said, referring to a large cluster of plumbing factories in the county.
“It would be ridiculous if the government cannot act according to the law and instead would always need to plan the forcible relocation of residents or construction of more industrial parks,” Wu added.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift