Most businesspeople and experts do not see a need to revive plans for a controversial cross-strait service trade agreement with China, Mainland Affairs Council spokesman Jan Jyh-horng (詹志宏) said on Thursday.
Debate on the issue reignited following news reports that a draft policy white paper by Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the party’s presidential candidate, had advocated restarting negotiations with Beijing on the pact.
The agreement, which was originally signed by China and the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in 2013, aimed to liberalize trade and investment rules between the two economies in service industries, including finance, tourism, healthcare, telecoms and publishing.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The KMT’s attempt to hastily ratify the pact in the legislature set off the student-led Sunflower movement in 2014, which ultimately led to the agreement being shelved.
The administration of then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) bid to integrate the Taiwanese economy with China played into Beijing’s strategy of locking Taiwan into its orbit, Jan said, adding that the project has lost all relevance due to the significant changes that have taken place in the decade following its inception.
The vast majority of entrepreneurs and academics do not see a need for reviving the agreement, he said.
Taiwan has always been willing to talk about trade with China, but the problem is Beijing has steadfastly refused to utilize the existing mechanisms for dialogue to pressure the nation into making concessions that comprise sovereignty, he added.
Separately, Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that speaking of restarting the agreement amid rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait and international economic and political crises is “tantamount to ... opening the gates to the enemy.”
In response to the news reports, Ko last week said that he had not yet formally proposed renegotiating the agreement.
He said that while he had always opposed the KMT’s “black box” tactics to force the pact through the legislature, he was not opposed to the agreement itself, as long as it was reviewed via democratic means.
Additional reporting by Kan Meng-lin
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS