Although there are not yet statistics about the impact of China’s 31 measures aimed at attracting Taiwanese professionals and businesses, they still pose a national security risk, the Mainland Affairs Council said in a report yesterday.
Using “equal treatment” and other offers, China’s measures are aimed at enticing Taiwanese to give up their right to “be their own masters,” the report said.
Taiwanese would lose their democracy, freedom and human rights, the report said, calling the 31 measures a “huge challenge” to Taiwan’s national security.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Taiwanese invested US$5.221 billion in China from January to July, a 2.77 percent decrease from the same period last year, the report said, citing statistics from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission.
Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data showed that 407,000 Taiwanese worked in China in 2016, 13,000 less than in 2015, the report said.
Due to this year’s decline in Taiwanese investments in China, the number of Taiwanese working in China might also continue to decrease, it said.
Since the announcement of the 31 measures, no professors from Taiwan’s public universities or top private universities have taken up teaching positions in China, while the number of private-school teachers and university graduates who have gone to teach in China has been about the same as before, the report said, citing information from the Ministry of Education.
Of the 37,149 students who studied abroad last year, 2,567 — about 6.9 percent — studied in China, the report said.
From January to last month, 108 doctors who said they planned to practice medicine in China applied for a certificate of good standing from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the report said.
That number was less than half that of last year’s or the 204 who applied in 2016, the report said.
While Beijing is making offers to Taiwanese willing to work in China, at the same time it is ramping up its suppression of Taiwan on the world stage, the report said.
Beijing uses credit score reporting systems and other methods to restrict freedom of speech and business operations, which pose risks for Taiwanese, the report said.
Taiwanese need to be aware of the risks associated with China’s offers, the council said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS