The President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration yesterday unveiled a draft bill on establishing an oversight mechanism for bilateral agreements with China, as students opposing the cross-strait service trade pact have been demanding, but stressed that it would have no implication for the controversial service deal.
The student-led activists against the service sector liberalization are also demanding that the Executive Yuan withdraw the trade pact from the legislature and suspend its legislative review until the mechanism is up and running.
Four days after Ma expressed his support for the protesters’ demand that the supervision of cross-strait agreements be institutionalized at an international press conference on Mar. 29, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) briefed members of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee on the details of the draft legislation to set up the monitoring mechanism.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The draft legislation combines the four-stage communication guidelines that the ruling party proposed in February to bolster legislative supervision of cross-strait treaties with a two-stage national security screening mechanism established by the council in January.
The bill is due to be discussed at a Cabinet meeting today.
The communication guidelines would require the Executive Yuan to brief the legislative speaker and deputy speaker, all legislative caucuses, as well as any relevant legislative committees, on the proposed contents of a cross-strait agreement during the issue formation stage, the first of four phases.
In the second stage, the communication phase, the legislature would be routinely updated on the progress of negotiations, while in the third, pre-signing phase, the Executive Yuan would have to brief lawmakers on the important details of the accord, its potential benefits and the ways in which it is to be enacted.
Finally, the post-signing phase would see the Executive Yuan providing the legislature with special reports on the achievements of the cross-strait agreement upon request.
Meanwhile, the national security screening mechanism would require pending cross-strait pacts to be sent to the Cabinet for review first before being “assessed thoroughly” by a group of academics selected by the National Security Council to ensure that they would not negatively impact society, national defense and security through their views.
“The bill is part of the government’s effort to promote transparent cross-strait negotiations and to respond positively to the public’s call for the institutionalization of a mechanism to monitor future cross-strait pacts,” Executive Yuan spokesman Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said.
However, Sun added that the bill would “have no bearing” on the service trade pact with China, a stance in accordance with Ma’s repeated insistence that the agreement be exempt from the retroactive application of any future laws enacted to monitor cross-strait treaties.
There are two main differences between the Cabinet’s version of the bill and that drawn up by the Democratic Front Against Cross-Strait Trade in Services Agreement — the one favored by the student-led demonstrators who have been occupying the legislature since Mar. 18 to try and block the service trade pact.
The first difference is that the civic group’s version would entitle the legislature to revise and add new articles to the proposed contents of a cross-strait agreement during the pre-negotiation phase.
Second, during the pre-signing stage, civic groups would be allowed to conduct their own impact assessment reports on proposed bilateral agreements.
If their conclusions differ significantly from those reached by the Cabinet, the legislature would then have the right to demand the government renegotiate the pact.
A third discrepancy between the two versions was resolved when the government last night agreed to the stipulations in the group’s proposal that a cross-strait agreement can be revised after it is signed and that it will renegotiate terms with Beijing if the legislature fails to ratify a pact.
Three cases of Candida auris, a fungus that can cause a yeast infection known as candidiasis in humans, have been reported in Taiwan over the past few years, but they did not display drug resistance, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said yesterday. Lo made the statement at a news conference in Taipei, one day after the Washington Post reported that the potentially deadly fungus is spreading in US hospitals. The fungus was first discovered in Japan in 2009 and poses a danger to immunocompromised people, with an estimated mortality rate of 30 to 60 percent, Lo
‘COINCIDENCE’: The former president should keep in mind local and global response to his actions and abide by the law to safeguard national interests, the MAC said The Presidential Office yesterday confirmed that it has received an application from former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to visit China next week and would be discussing his security detail. “As the travel restrictions on former president Ma have expired, we respect his plan to pay respect to his ancestors in China,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Lin Yu-chan (林聿禪) said. “We will review his travel plan and consult concerned agencies to assist him in arranging his security detail.” “We also hope that Ma, as a former commander in chief of Taiwan, acts in a manner that aligns with national interests and does not hurt
‘DIRE’: Taiwan would not engage in ‘dollar diplomacy,’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, after China reportedly offered Honduras up to US$3 billion to establish relations The government yesterday recalled its ambassador to Honduras after the Central American nation sent its foreign minister to China, signaling that it would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Suspicions concerning ties with Honduras are rife after Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday last week wrote on Twitter that her country would pursue diplomatic ties with China. Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina traveled to China on Wednesday “to promote efforts for the establishment of diplomatic relations” on instructions from Castro, Reuters yesterday quoted Honduran presidential spokesman Ivis Alvarado as saying. The government “has decided to immediately recall the ambassador to Honduras
‘NOTHING NEW’: China should not use Tsai Ing-wen’s transits through the US as a pretext to step up aggressive activity in the Taiwan Strait, a Washington official said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to stop over in the US on her way to and from Central America next week, but her administration would not confirm a meeting with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Tsai’s delegation is to leave Taipei on Wednesday next week and stop over in New York City, Presidential Office spokeswoman Lin Yu-chan (林聿禪) told a news conference yesterday. Tsai is then to head to Guatemala on Saturday next week for talks with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and to meet with Taiwanese expatriates, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. On April 3, Tsai is scheduled to travel