Faced with the public outcry and criticism from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday pulled a cartoon designed to promote a proposed trade agreement with China.
Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) had earlier apologized for the controversy surrounding the cartoon to promote the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing.
The ministry said in a statement yesterday that “personnel responsible for the cartoon campaign shall be reprimanded and transferred to other departments.”
Yiin apologized again for the cartoon yesterday, but said he hoped it would not distract from the crucial issue of inking an ECFA with China to aid Taiwan's economic development.
Introduced on July 20, the ECFA cartoon was criticized for ethnic stereotyping. Yi-ge (一哥) was described as a 45-year-old Hoklo-speaking man from Tainan, a vocational school graduate who works as a salesman in an unspecified traditional industry and who knows very little about the ECFA. His counterpart, Fa-sao (發嫂), was described as a 40-year-old Hakka woman from Hsinchu who works as a supervisor in a trading company, is fluent in English, Mandarin, Hoklo and Japanese, and is eager to learn about the ECFA.
Yiin again disassociated himself from the incident, saying he had no knowledge of the development of the two characters as he was attending the APEC meeting in Singapore at the time.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) welcomed the removal of the cartoon, but said the deeper problem was the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) habitual use of negative ads.
Acting DPP Spokesman Chao Tie-lin (趙天麟) alleged that the KMT had a track record of using negative campaigns, ranging from the use of profanity to public defamation. He also criticized Yiin for handing out demerits to officials who oversaw the project.
“On a large-scale project such as the [ECFA] cartoon, entry-level staff have virtually no say in [its creation]. Yiin is the minister and it was his ministry that published the cartoon, which means Yiin should be punished before he starts pointing the finger at others,” Chao said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Po-chih (陳博志), who had accused the ministry of fabricating the results of an impact assessment report on the ECFA, yesterday rejected Yiin's demand for an apology and challenged him to an open debate instead.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS