Furious at being sidetracked by Japan's Shinkansen in a race to build Taiwan's NT$440 billion "bullet train," Eurotrain is pressing the courts to get its bid back on track.
The action, announced yesterday, prompted denials from the government that the decision by Taiwan's high-speed railway company might have been made in the interests of political expediency.
The Franco-German-Anglo consortium said yesterday it had begun suing Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC,
Eurotrain spokesman Hua Way-phai said THSRC gave Eurotrain priority negotiating rights in a 1997 contract, and that this obliged the consortium to award it the coveted contract if its price was considered reasonable.
Eurotrain asked the Taipei District Court to disallow THSRC's dramatic Dec. 28 decision, in which the company switched its preference to Shinkansen after apparently finding the Japanese bid superior in price as well as in technology and maintenance specifications.
``We have asked the district court to temporarily freeze all ongoing negotiations between THSRC and the Shinkansen group,'' the Eurotrain spokesman said.
Siemens AG chairman Heinrich von Pierer, whose firm makes the Eurotrain locomotives, was en route yesterday to Taiwan to lobby President Lee Teng-hui (
However, Siew dismissed the notion yesterday that the government would involve itself in any negotiations between the European consortium and THSRC.
"This is a BOT [build-operate-transfer] scheme and is totally under the control of the [THSRC] consortium. At no stage in the decision-making process have they asked for opinions from the government,'' Siew said.
"Even if the president of Siemens pays his respects to me, I will tell him just what I have already said,'' Siew said.
THSRC said in December the new Shinkansen deal was ``much more mature'' than the 1997 pact with Eurotrain and that final contracts could be signed as early as this month.
Edward Lin (
At the heart of the matter seems to be whether THSRC actually signed any kind of official contract with the Eurotrain consortium. Local media quoted unnamed sources within the Taiwanese company yesterday as saying it had not signed anything binding.
The media reports also commented that Eurotrain's lawsuit would be more of a symbolic gesture than anything else.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Proposed amendments would forbid the use of all personal electronic devices during school hours in high schools and below, starting from the next school year in August, the Ministry of Education said on Monday. The Regulations on the Use of Mobile Devices at Educational Facilities up to High Schools (高級中等以下學校校園行動載具使用原則) state that mobile devices — defined as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches or other wearables — should be turned off at school. The changes would stipulate that use of such devices during class is forbidden, and the devices should be handed to a teacher or the school for safekeeping. The amendments also say
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
RSS