ECFA is carcinogenic
The government recently approved 207 applications (including 192 applications pertaining to industrial products and 15 applications pertaining to agricultural products) for Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) production site certificates. The industrial products are predominantly petrochemicals, followed by machining and textiles. According to the ECFA, China will allow the import of 557 Taiwanese items, in which petrochemicals are the major items. This means Taiwan will export mainly petrochemical products to China.
The national cancer map for 2008 shows that after the sixth naphtha cracker started operation in 2001, Yunlin County and adjacent Chiayi County have cancer death rates that are 1.23 to 1.53 times higher than the national average (“Say no to proposed Kuokuang project,” Dec. 22, 2010, page 8). The incidence of cardiovascular disease and strokes also clearly increased and carcinogens emitted by the petrochemical industry were found in urine samples of residents near the naphtha cracker.
The proposed Kuokuang petrochemical complex involves building the nation’s eighth naphtha cracker in Changhua County’s Dacheng Township (大城). Unless the proposed project is canceled, residents of Changhua will suffer the same fate as their counterparts in Yunlin and Chiayi.
In addition, ecology in the wetland and flora and fauna in the vicinity will be damaged.
Taiwan should not export petrochemicals to China at the cost of the health and lives of Taiwanese. It is ironic for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to order national security-level steps to increase the nation’s birthrate and, at the same time, to promote the construction of the Kuokuang complex that will emit carcinogens to kill Taiwanese. Apparently, the Kuokuang project is to meet Chinese market demand.
Is the ECFA a tool for prosperity in China and death in Taiwan?
Scaling down the project by one-third is not a solution. Complete cancellation is the only solution.
CHARLES HONG
Columbus, Ohio
Playing the blame game
The shooting on Sunday of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was an appalling crime. Yet the insinuation in your front-page piece on Monday that this is somehow Sarah Palin’s fault or the fault of the Tea Party movement is absurd; such a claim is little different from the claim that violence on TV causes violence in real life (“US lawmaker shot in the head, in critical condition,” Jan. 10, page 1).
Yet although it may be absurd, the purpose of slipping it into the subhead and elsewhere in the report is transparently manipulative: To discredit generally conservative or libertarian criticism of big government by tenuous association with the appalling actions of an apparent lunatic.
Yet any honest observer of the numerous demonstrations and events held by the Tea Party movement throughout the last year must admit that US conservatives — even the hardcore constitutionalists — are simply not lunatics calling for the summary execution of politicians. To say such a thing is dishonest; to insinuate it is both devious and dishonest.
MICHAEL FAGAN.
Tainan
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
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