President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that he was pleased US President Barack Obama had praised the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and its impact on relations across the Taiwan Strait, adding that the compliment showed international recognition of the pact.
Meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) at the White House on Wednesday, Obama said the ECFA has promoted communication between Taipei and Beijing.
“The statement is an indication that President Ma’s persistence in improving cross-strait relations has withstood scrutiny and been well-received by the international community,” Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said.
Lo said Ma was gratified that Obama had recognized the importance of the economic pact and that his administration would continue its efforts to push for peaceful cross-strait relations.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also lauded the ECFA last week in a speech on US relations with China, Lo said, adding that well-known academics had followed suit.
Signed in June last year, the ECFA took effect in September amid fears that it could adversely impact Taiwan’s traditional industries and the nation’s sovereignty.
Obama’s praise for the pact, Lo said, undercut claims that the ECFA would be disastrous for Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it felt the US remained committed to its “six assurances” during a recent series of briefings by US officials on the topics that were expected to be discussed by Hu and Obama in Washington.
In a press statement, the ministry said: “The Taiwan Relations Act [TRA], the six assurances and the three China-US joint communiques comprising the US’ ‘one China’ policy ... have been reaffirmed by US administrations over the years.”
In 1982, after the US signed the 817 Communique with China pledging to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan, then-US president Ronald Reagan provided “six assurances” to Taipei.
The “six assurances” reaffirmed the US’ policy not to set a cutoff date for arms sales to Taiwan, not to consult with China on arms sales, not to undertake the role of mediator between Taiwan and China, not to revise the TRA, to affirm that the US position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan and its associated islands had not changed and not to pressure Taipei into beginning negotiations with Beijing.
Asked why the ministry linked the six assurances to the Obama-Hu meeting when they had not been mentioned, an official said: “We ‘felt’ the US commitment to the promise in our bilateral communications.”
The last public mention of the six assurances was made by then-assistant US secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific James Kelly during a speech in 2002, the official said.
At a press conference, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman James Chang (章計平) said: “The US government has been consistent in abiding by the six assurances since they became policy in 1982.”
The Hu-Obama joint statement saw the US reiterate its position in the 2009 joint statement that it “welcomes the peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Strait.”
Chang denied that the statement suggested the US was pushing Taiwan to enter political negotiations with China, talks that Ma has said are not on his agenda.
“One should not interpret this as the US pressuring [Taiwan to start political negotiations with China], which would be inconsistent with [point six of the] six assurances,” Chang said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS