A Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official said on Thursday that he would need to learn more before commenting on reports that a Chinese official had said the two cross-strait intermediary bodies — the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) — should set up offices on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
MAC Deputy Chairman Liu Teh-shun (劉德勳) was referring to a report by China News Service that quoted ARATS Vice President Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中) as saying in a directors’ meeting in Beijing that ARATS would study setting up offices in Taiwan, while the SEF could set up offices in China.
Both the SEF and ARATS are quasi-official bodies set up by their respective governments to deal with bilateral exchanges in the absence of formal ties.
Liu said he had not seen the report, but noted that cross-strait relations would be dealt with cautiously and that he would not comment before learning more about Zheng’s statement.
“This is not an issue that has been previously talked about,” Liu said, adding that Zheng had not formally conveyed such a standpoint to the SEF.
Meanwhile, at a separate setting, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said regulations that state that cross-strait agreements take effect automatically one month after they are signed should be revised to allow the legislature to screen all such pacts.
Wang said the legislature should “substantially” screen all agreements signed during talks between the SEF and ARATS.
Under the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), all cross-strait agreements become effective 30 days after they are signed, whether lawmakers approve them or not.
The legislature has no power to nullify agreements and this has caused concern, especially after the two sides held their first round of talks on Wednesday on a proposed cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
An SEF briefing to the legislature on the first round of talks is scheduled to take place on Wednesday.
In related news, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) proposed “institutionalizing” the legislature’s monitoring of cross-strait issues by setting up a cross-strait affairs monitoring task force.
DPP spokesman Chuang Shuo-han (莊碩漢) said the party would prefer such a task force rather than to ask those involved in ECFA policy formulation and negotiations to provide regular briefings.
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would