Despite attempts by Manila to re-start talks on reopening air routes between Taiwan and the Philip-pines, Taiwan officials appear hesitant to go back into negotiations.
The air links were suspended earlier this month.
"We have to first verify whether Manila is sincere in starting the talks," said Shih Ting, (石定), director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' East Asia and Pacific Affairs Department.
"We have not yet decided when to resume talks," Shih said.
Shih's comments directly contradicted those made yesterday by Philippine presidential spokes-man Jerry Barican, who said that representatives of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) and the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) were scheduled to meet yesterday to finalize a date for the resumption of negotiations.
"In the meantime, the Philippines and Taiwan are exploring the possibility of immediately resuming flights between the two parties pending the finalization of the agreement," Barican said.
Direct air links between Taiwan and the Philippines were suspended after Taipei rejected Manila's demand for China Airlines and EVA Airways to reduce their combined passenger capacity to 3000 per week, down from the 9,600 stipulated in the previous 1996 agreement.
"I have an impression that talks will be scheduled as soon as possible, possibly within this week," Franklin Ebdalin, the Philippines' assistant foreign secretary for legal affairs told the Taipei Times.
"I was informed by Eva Estrada Kalaw (a MECO representative) that she will contact the TECO office this morning," he said.
Both Kalaw and her Taiwanese counterpart, Chan Hsien-ching (
In what appears to be a total about-face for the Philippines, Ebdalin hinted Manila is willing to retract its unilateral decision to reduce its passenger quota for Taiwan carriers to 3,000 per week.
"There is a common understanding that we will not stick to our original position," said Ebda-lin, also a member of Manila's Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB).
Two months of negotiations ground to a halt late last month after the Philippines refused to budge on its offer of 3,000 passengers per week.
Chang Kuo-cheng (
"A few month ago, Manila offered 4,000 seats, but later that became 3,000 seats. They said because this [1996 agreement] is a `private agreement,' they can terminate it any time they want," said Chang.
"Manila also unilaterally imposed the 3,000 seats-per-week quota and threatened to terminate air links if we did not agree. Is this the way negotiations are conducted?" he asked.
In another apparent about-face, Ebdalin said during the public hearing that the 1996 aviation agreement with Taiwan "has never been terminated." He claimed only the "rights" extended under the agreement were terminated and not the agreement itself.
However, the CAB had previously issued a press statement saying it was canceling the 1996 air agreement unless Taiwan accepted the weekly quota of 3,000 seats per week.
Ebdalin also offended Taiwan officials when he previously said that Manila had no obligation to uphold the 1996 aviation agreement, since it was not one made between two sovereign states.
He later said he was expressing a personal opinion.
Newspaper editorials in Manila have recently slammed Philippine president Joseph Estrada for what they claim is his sacrifice of public interests to protect PAL.
Filipino tour operators have protested against its government's decision to reduce the passenger quota, citing a possible US$146 million-per-year loss in revenue.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS