Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday said that no member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has expressed opposition to Taiwan applying to join the trade bloc.
“So far, we have not met any one country [that is a CPTPP member] that has openly or privately expressed their objection to Taiwan’s bid,” Wu told lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
The government had been in talks with all 11 CPTPP members about Taiwan’s possible membership, Wu said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Asked on Friday if Australia supported Taiwan joining the bloc, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that the CPTPP was “a relationship between nation states that are recognized.”
Speaking at the APEC summit in Bangkok, Albanese described Taiwan as an “economy,” inferred by some to mean that Taiwan did not qualify to join the CPTPP.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that this interpretation is at odds with the CPTPP’s charter, which states that “any State or separate customs territory may accede to this Agreement.”
On Saturday, Albanese offered a slightly modified response, stating that applications would be “dealt with on consensus for economies applying to join the CPTPP” and judged based on their individual merits.
At yesterday’s legislative meeting, Wu said the Australian government had made it clear to Taipei that it welcomed “all economic entities” that meet the CPTPP’s high standards to join the bloc.
Wu said that following Albanese comments on Friday, the ministry had reached out to an “authoritative Australian government branch,” which made the clarification.
The ministry did not reveal the source of the clarification, and the Australian government has not issued a statement to that effect.
The CPTPP — which grew out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership abandoned by the US in January 2017 — is one of the world’s biggest trade blocs, representing a market of 500 million people and accounting for 13.5 percent of global trade.
For a new member to join the CPTPP, all 11 signatories — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam — must approve the application.
Taiwan applied on Sept. 22 last year to join the CPTPP, less than one week after China submitted its application.
Asked when Taiwan might join the trade bloc, Wu told lawmakers that the CPTPP is focusing on reviewing the UK’s bid and is unlikely to deal with Taiwan’s application any time soon.
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
RSS