Asia-Pacific economies led by the US and China opened annual talks yesterday with calls to fight protectionism or risk reversing the region’s “fragile” economic rebound.
Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo (楊榮文) said “resisting protectionism” was the topmost concern, as foreign and trade ministers from the 21-member APEC met in advance of a weekend summit here.
“It is a slippery slope and if we are not careful, before we know it, all of us will be in a much more dire situation,” he said before convening the meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Pacific Rim delegates.
Asked if the ministers believed the world’s worst economic crisis since the 1930s was at an end, Yeo told reporters: “The consensus is that it is by no means over.
“The upturn that we now have is a respite ... the situation is still fragile and we should address the root causes of the problem,” he said.
World Bank president Robert Zoellick told the Foreign Correspondents Association of Singapore that protectionism remained a risk.
“This is still a region that is dependent very much on trade and logistics systems and so when you get higher unemployment, you always have the risk of protectionism as well,” he said.
US Chamber of Commerce chief Thomas Donohue urged APEC to fight “trade isolationism” and lead the world in “jump-starting” the Doha round of talks on a new global trade deal.
“Expanding free trade across the Pacific can drive the global economic recovery, create badly needed jobs and advance economic and social progress in developing and developed countries alike,” Donohue said at a separate forum.
“The United States, in particular, needs to get off the sidelines and embrace an ambitious trade agenda,” he said.
APEC finance ministers will meet separately today and are expected to call for lavish stimulus spending to be kept in place until the global economic recovery is secure.
Zoellick, however, said the accelerating recovery in Asia could trigger a new round of economic overheating and inflation, and said governments must unwind their stimulus injections with care.
He said there were signs in some nations of a “substantial” rise in equity and property prices that could lead to asset bubbles.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday vowed to investigate claims made in a YouTube video about China’s efforts to politically influence young Taiwanese and encourage them to apply for Chinese ID cards. The council’s comments follow Saturday’s release of a video by Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) and YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” on China’s “united front” tactics. It is the second video on the subject the pair have released this month. In the video, Chen visits the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Park in Quanzhou in China’s Fujian Province and the Strait Herald news platform in Xiamen, China. The Strait Herald — owned by newspaper
RSS