The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) does not have any immediate plan for — nor is it authorized to — discuss the establishment of an office in China or vice versa, SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) said yesterday.
Chiang said the Act Governing Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) stipulates that any Chinese non-profit body, corporation, organization or other institution must obtain permission from the relevant supervisory body in Taiwan if they want to establish an office or branch organization here.
So far, the SEF has not been authorized by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) to discuss any such arrangement with its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), Chiang said.
As for setting up a new working panel of the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Committee (ECC), Chiang said the matter would be negotiated by the ECC.
The purpose of the ECC is to handle negotiation, implementation, application and interpretation of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) or disputes arising from it.
The committee, which met for the first time in Taoyuan on Feb. 21 and Feb. 22, will initiate discussions on agreements on investment protection, commodity trade, service trade and a dispute resolution mechanism as stipulated in the ECFA.
Taiwan hopes to establish a working panel under the committee to address bilateral industrial collaboration to help Taiwan’s firms seize opportunities in the Chinese market before China launches its 12th Five-Year Plan in the second half of this year.
Regarding speculation that the next round of cross-strait talks between Chiang and ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) might take place in Taiwan, MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) yesterday said it was still too early to tell because the SEF and ARATS had not yet discussed the matter.
Liu added there was no timetable set for the return of 14 Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from the Philippines to China because investigations take time.
“We want not only the 14 suspects, but also evidence of their crimes,” Liu said.
However, this might not be easy to achieve because some of the suspects have complained that certain “equipment” connected to the crime was seized by Philippine officials.
Since Taipei and Beijing have signed an agreement on joint efforts to combat crime, Liu said he hoped both sides could sit down and talk about cross--border crime and how the two sides should deal with crimes committed in a third country.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
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