The Presidential Office yesterday hit back at critics — including former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) — who said on Saturday that an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) the government is seeking to sign with Beijing this year will undermine Taiwan’s competitiveness.
Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said the administration was more than happy to explain the trade pact to Lee, who expressed concern over what he called the government’s “China-friendly” policy. Lee also questioned China’s sincerity following its recent promises to help Taiwan sign free-trade agreements (FTA) with other countries if Taipei signs an ECFA, saying Beijing “never means what it says and will lie if that serves its purposes.”
Lo said the administration would proceed with the planned agreement on condition that the country needs it, the public supports it and the legislature supervises it.
Lo also repudiated remarks by former US diplomat John Tkacik, who warned that an ECFA would marginalize Taiwan economically and deal a blow to workers and farmers.
He said the administration respected Tkacik’s “personal view,” but that it was the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration’s cross-strait policy that was the main culprit in Taiwan’s marginalization.
“We hope Mr Tkacik will first understand who is hurting Taiwan’s agriculture before he makes any comment,” Lo said.
Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) continued touting the proposed ECFA, asking the public to have faith that he would find a way out of Taiwan’s economic isolation.
Ma said if Taiwan continued to be excluded from other countries’ FTAs, it would run the risk of being isolated economically.
“I will do my best to work for the interest of Taiwan and seek a way out,” he said while promoting the proposed ECFA with Cabinet officials in Tainan County. “Please believe me.”
Ma said Taiwan has signed FTAs with five of its diplomatic allies in Latin America, but the combined trade volume is less than 0.2 percent of the country’s annual total.
“It will be more meaningful if we sign them with our major trading partners,” he said.
China is Taiwan’s largest export market, Ma said, accounting for 40 percent of the country’s total exports. It is followed by Japan, the US and Southeast Asian countries, he said.
However, each of these export markets has been shrinking, he said, mainly because Taiwan could not enjoy lower tariffs since it lacked FTAs with those countries.
Ma criticized underground radio stations for spreading rumors that he would allow the import of more Chinese agricultural products after he was elected president.
Since he took office in May 2008, Ma said he never agreed to allow more Chinese agricultural products into the local market but that instead the government had increased exports of Taiwan’s fruits to China two-fold, fresh vegetables eight-fold and bass four-fold. Among the 1,415 agricultural items allowed in from China, 936 were approved by the former DPP administration, he said.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) dismissed speculation that an ECFA would cause 280,000 farmers to lose their jobs, saying the estimate was made under the premise that the ban on 830 Chinese agricultural products would be lifted.
“If any of those items are allowed to come in on my watch, I will resign,” he said.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS