President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration yesterday agreed to a request to hold a national affairs conference on economics and trade in a bid to resolve the controversies surrounding the cross-strait service trade agreement.
However, the government rejected demands by students protesting the agreement for a citizens’ constitutional conference to address the long-term political stalemate.
“President Ma and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) have discussed at length the request by industrial and financial heavyweights last week to hold a trade conference. They have instructed the National Development Council [NDC] to evaluate such a conference’s feasibility,” Executive Yuan spokesman Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) told a press conference yesterday afternoon.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The Executive Yuan is scheduled to announce details of the plan at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Sun said.
The move was interpreted by some as a distraction from Ma’s refusal to yield to the students’ demand to call a citizens’ constitutional conference with representatives from all walks of life to ensure the public’s full and active participation in major national issues like the apct.
The students issued the demand on the grounds that lawmakers from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which holds an absolute majority in the legislature and which has Ma as chairman, have forsaken their duty to represent the people because they have to toe the party line or face being disciplined.
Sun said Ma did not respond to the protesters’ demand because cross-strait economic interaction and regional economic integration are major issues facing the country and holding a national affairs conference on economics and trade would ensure that “the attention of the public was not diverted” from these issues.
With regard to another demand by the students that the government ratifies the civil version of the draft bill to establish an oversight mechanism on cross-strait agreements, Sun said Jiang had entrusted the Mainland Affairs Council with drawing up a similar bill, which was likely to be passed by the Cabinet and referred to the legislature for review on Thursday at the earliest.
National Taiwan University graduate student Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), one of the leaders of the student movement, said a national affairs conference on economics and trade was different in nature to a citizens’ constitutional conference.
Earlier yesterday, Ma said during a meeting with dozens of industry representatives at the Presidential Office that he had “listened carefully and responded positively” to the students’ demands.
“Since the service trade agreement has been signed and is pending review in the legislature, we think it is appropriate to review it while working to establish a mechanism to monitor cross-strait agreements,” Ma said.
NDC Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said the council plans to discuss three topics at the proposed conference — cross-strait trade relations, the free-trade policy toward the international market and the business environment in Taiwan.
“The nation’s cross-strait trade policy is at the center of recent political disputes, and we may encounter the same issue as we try to join the RCEP [Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership], of which China is a member,” Kuan said.
All related government departments will be responsible for conducting meetings concurrently, and there will be a final conference to integrate the opinions expressed in previous meetings, Kuan said.
In addition to government officials and academics, the council is to invite many citizens and groups — including student groups — to the meetings to avoid misunderstandings about the government’s future policies, Kuan said.
Kuan said the council did not have a timetable for the meeting as this will be decided by the premier, but the government will hold the series of talks as soon as possible to meet the expectations of the general public.
Additional reporting by Camaron Kao
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
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS