Draft acts proposed by the ruling and opposition parties to establish monitoring mechanisms for cross-strait agreements are seriously flawed, because they would not be retroactive, the Economic Democracy Union said yesterday.
Six bills separately proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus, DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) and Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), and the New Power Party (NPP) and People First Party caucuses are to be reviewed at a meeting of the Internal Administration Committee today.
Committee convener Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) of the KMT placed the bills on the meeting agenda instead of a draft amendment to 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) proposed by the Executive Yuan last month.
Unlike the proposed amendment, which aims to increase oversight over cross-strait agreements of a political nature, the bills would provide a more general framework for filtering all cross-strait agreements, including trade pacts.
Although their details vary, none of the bills ensure legislative oversight, public participation, transparency or a preliminary impact evaluation for cross-strait agreements signed before their enactment, union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) told a news conference.
“This is a very serious flaw,” Lai said.
While the bills were drafted partly as a result of the 2014 Sunflower movement, none of them would require the government to renegotiate the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, he said.
“The movement’s main goal was to cancel the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement and the new law should include mechanisms to make that possible,” he said.
The NPP said it would propose a motion during the review to increase the threshold for cross-strait agreements to pass.
“It has been more than five years since the Sunflower movement and we believe more action is needed to meet the public’s expectations,” NPP caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.
The party’s draft act for monitoring cross-strait agreements stipulates that any agreement of a political nature must be approved by three-fourth of the legislators in a meeting attended by three-fourth of them.
The agreement then must be approved by more than half of the electorate in a nationwide referendum before it can take effect, according to the bill.
The NPP would also propose legislation before the end of the legislative session to tackle Chinese infiltration and disinformation, Hsu said.
The US passed the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act as early as 2016 to fight covert influence activities by Russia and China, NPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said, adding that many experts in Taiwan have been calling for a similar legislation to counter Chinese meddling.
SPEEDING ELETRIC VEHICLES: Available without license requirements, the low-cost vehicles, especially if illicitly modified, can often reach a dangerous speed The government should crack down on illegal electric bicycles and scooters, the non-profit Consumers’ Foundation said on Friday, citing research on the potentially dangerous speed of the vehicles. Electric bicycles and lightweight electric scooters have gained popularity as they do not require registration and riders do not need licenses, the foundation said, adding that as many as 40 percent of them can reach speeds exceeding the legal limit of 25kph for non-licensed two-wheelers. Some consumers also purchased legal electric vehicles and modified them to reach higher speeds, it said. “If the government does not step up efforts to confiscate these
DIPLOMATIC MOVES: Beijing is reportedly pressing the state after reports of forming links with Taiwan, while the ministry is also planning to reopen its office in Guam soon A representative office is set to open in Somaliland at the end of this month, at the earliest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday amid reports that Beijing is sending a diplomatic delegation to the east African country. The ministry on July 1 announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would establish representative offices, following a report by the Somaliland Chronicle Web site. It said at the time that the two nations did not plan to establish formal ties. Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi has instructed close confidants to explore the possibility of “mutual recognition between Taiwan and Somaliland,” the Somaliland Chronicle reported
A Belgian man who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan last week is likely to have contracted the disease in Taipei in late June, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported that the man, who is in his 20s, came to Taiwan for work on May 3 and tested positive on Wednesday last week as he was about to depart. The man in March reported loss of taste and smell, the center said, adding that he worked in Changhua County, but visited Taipei several times,
NEW CASE REPORTED: A man who returned from South Africa on a flight with the nation’s 460th and 461st cases has now tested positive for the disease The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that there is no need to test all arrivals to the nation for COVID-19, a policy the Executive Yuan supports. The center reported one new imported case, bringing the nation’s tally of confirmed cases to 477. The new case is a Taiwanese man in his 60s who on July 25 returned from South Africa, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is also the CECC’s spokesman. The man had returned to Taiwan on the same flight as cases Nos. 460 and 461, reported on July 27, Chuang said. On July 24,
RSS