The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday reiterated its call for the proposed cross-strait service trade agreement to be renegotiated and detailed its concern over the pact’s impact on certain sectors.
“We support and respect what our comrades are doing in the Legislative Yuan,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said at party headquarters, after DPP and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers scuffled in the legislature, pushing, shoving and grabbing microphones at the start of the legislative review of the agreement.
The DPP has always supported free-trade agreements — such as those with Singapore and New Zealand — that will benefit the economy and the party does not oppose the service trade agreement, Su said.
However, the party opposes agreements that lack transparency, and the government has failed to consult industries and companies that might be affected by the pact and to undertake a proper risk assessment of its impact, he said.
In a briefing to the DPP’s Central Standing Committee, Department of China Affairs director Honigmann Hong (洪財隆) presented a list of sectors that may be adversely affected by the agreement.
Citing a public opinion poll conducted by the party on Feb. 18 and Feb. 19, Hong said that 52 percent of respondents opposed the legislature passing the trade pact, while 70.5 percent supported a renegotiation of the agreement.
“We are standing on the same side as mainstream public opinion,” Hong said.
The DPP recommended that certain sectors, such as printing and publishing, advertising and logistics, should not be liberalized given the big difference in the countries’ political and economic systems.
Printing and publishing should not be open to China because Beijing maintains strict censorship and keeps a tight rein on freedom of speech, the party said.
Taiwanese logistics firms could be at risk as their Chinese counterparts are mainly state-owned enterprises that have huge financial capacity to buy up Taiwanese firms, Hong said.
Beauty parlors and laundromats — the source of livelihood for tens of thousands of small business owners — should also be exempted, he added.
Sectors that could raise national security concerns, including Type II telecommunications, Web site content management and database services, should also be excluded from the liberalization list, he said.
Hong added that liberalization as defined in the agreement was unequal, which he said could be a result either of the poor negotiating skills of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration or China’s refusal to adopt reciprocal treatment.
China has limited its liberalization of electronic commerce, retail and funeral services to specific regions, while Taiwan places no restrictions on Chinese investment, Hong said.
China will also only allow Taiwanese nonprofit organizations to operate in the social care industry, while Chinese commercial and nonprofit organizations will be allowed to operate freely in Taiwan, he added.
The DPP does not oppose liberalization of the banking business, but warned that Chinese investors could become majority shareholders of half of the 16 financial holding companies in Taiwan, Hong said.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
A former soldier and an active-duty army officer were yesterday indicted for allegedly selling classified military training materials to a Chinese intelligence operative for a total of NT$79,440. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Chen Tai-yin (陳泰尹) and Lee Chun-ta (李俊達) for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例). Chen left the military in September 2013 after serving alongside then-staff sergeant Lee, now an army lieutenant, at the 21st Artillery Command of the army’s Sixth Corps from 2011 to 2013, according to the indictment. Chen met a Chinese intelligence operative identified as “Wang” (王) through a friend in November
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
The Grand Hotel Taipei has rejected media reports claiming that the hotel had prevented CBS from broadcasting coverage of the Beijing summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on its premises. Media reports alleging that the hotel owner, dissatisfied with CBS’s coverage, prohibited the network from broadcasting political content on the hotel premises, are not true, the hotel said in a statement issued last night. The reports were “inconsistent with how the hotel actually handled the matter,” it said. The hotel said it received a refund request from a
RSS