Activists yesterday welcomed proposals to transfer the review of supervisory articles governing negotiations with China to a joint legislative committee, calling for amendments and hastening the review process.
“This is an important bill which does not just address internal administrative questions,” said Economic Democracy Union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強), who was part of the Sunflower movement, at a rally outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei with Social Democratic Party (SDP) activists. “Allowing legislators from all related committees to be included in discussions and to propose substantial amendments is the right direction.”
Passage of supervisory articles was a key demand of the Sunflower movement, which saw student activists occupy the legislature in 2014 to protest an agreement negotiated by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Legislators yesterday clashed over whether review of the supervisory articles should be conducted by the Internal Administration Committee or a special joint legislative committee, allowing lawmakers from the New Power Party (NPP) — which is not represented on the Internal Administration Committee — to vote and directly propose amendments during the review process.
NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) was a prominent Sunflower movement activist, and the party has promised to propose Economic Democracy Union-sponsored amendments to the draft bill.
Lai added that a joint committee review should not be an excuse to delay a committee review.
“What we do not want is for an agreement for a joint committee review, only to see the bill drop out of sight, like a stone sinking to the bottom of the sea,” he said, reiterating activists’ concerns that cross-strait talks are likely to resume next year following the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Party Congress this fall.
Lai also called for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to explain how the proposed supervisory articles would affect previously negotiated agreements on trade in services and goods.
Whether the government would be required to submit negotiation plans for a trade in goods agreement after the bill’s passage remains unclear, he said.
It is also unclear whether there will be an article-by-article or package vote on the service trade agreement, he said.
SDP Chairperson Fan Yun (范雲) called for changes to the DPP caucus’ draft bill that would require a substantive review of agreements, automatic referendums on the results of political talks, to redefine “cross-strait relations” as being between “Taiwan and China,” as well as applying any new review requirements to the proposed service trade agreement.
She said that the DPP seemed to have a “goldfish brain” — lacking long-term memory — over the service trade agreement, which served as the catalyst for the Sunflower movement.
“Given that the official draft does not include provisions that would ensure it is retroactively applied to the service trade agreement, how does [the DPP] intend to address the issue? So far it has failed to give us a clear answer,” she said.
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
Samsung Electronics Co yesterday commenced mass production of 3-nanometer chips that are more powerful and efficient than predecessors, beating rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to a key milestone in the race to build the most advanced chips in the world. South Korea’s largest company said in a statement that it was beginning with 3-nanometer semiconductors for high-performance and specialized low-power computing applications before expanding to mobile processors. By applying so-called Gate-All-Around transistor architecture, Samsung’s 3-nanometer products reduce power consumption by up to 45 percent and improve performance by 23 percent compared with 5-nanometer chips, it said. Samsung’s push to be first
COUNTERING CHINA: ‘When democracies demonstrate what we can do ... I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,’ US President Joe Biden said US President Joe Biden rebooted his effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after an earlier campaign faltered, enlisting the support of G7 leaders at their summit in Germany. The Build Back Better World initiative, named after Biden’s domestic spending and climate agenda, struggled to get off the ground because not enough G7 partners contributed financially when it was unveiled a year ago, people familiar with its lack of progress said. “When democracies demonstrate what we can do — all that we have to offer — I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,” Biden said during
Three to four tropical storms or typhoons are expected to hit Taiwan this year due to a weak La Nina effect in the northwest Pacific Ocean, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday, as typhoon season begins next month. Taiwan’s typhoon season generally lasts from July to September, with most typhoons occurring in August. Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) told a news conference that a weakening La Nina is expected to have less of an effect on Taiwan. “The climate simulation we conducted, and those conducted by other meteorological agencies around the world, showed that the number of typhoons that
RSS