The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) is showing no sign of giving up its fight to turn the recently signed cross-strait trade agreement over to a public referendum.
Delivering nearly 100 boxes, each holding more than 1,000 signed petition forms, to the Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday, TSU officials said the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) could alter the status quo for Taiwan and lock the country into a “one China” framework.
“Everyone can clearly see that this ECFA will change Taiwan’s economic, social and political relationship with China,” TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said outside the CEC in Taipei. “President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is unilaterally changing the cross-strait situation, and we want to ask him: Doesn’t this require the people’s approval?”
PHOTO: CNA
This is the second referendum proposal on the controversial agreement raised by the TSU, which wants to ask voters whether they agree with the government’s decision to sign the ECFA with China. The earlier proposal was rejected by the Referendum Review Commission last month after it said the TSU’s referendum question and content contradicted one another.
Flanked by a number of pro-independence organizations, including the Taiwan Association of University Professors and the World United Formosans for Independence, a dozen TSU officials arrived outside the commission, wheeling dozens of brown boxes containing the petition forms.
An apparent misunderstanding initially took place between the TSU officials and police after police officers first closed the outside gates, barring entry to party officials trying to hand their petition forms over to the CEC.
Amid cries from dozens of protesters at the scene, who yelled that a referendum “is a public right,” and “the ECFA needs a referendum,” police opened the outside gate to a small number of TSU officials including Huang, but subsequently tried to close the glass doors to the building.
All of the TSU’s 105,000 petition forms were eventually delivered after CEC officials came out to officially accept the TSU proposal, which prevented tension from boiling over as more than 20 police officers looked on.
Under the Referendum Act (公民投票法), the CEC has 15 days to either accept the proposal and pass it on to the Referendum Review Committee or send it back to the organizers pending corrections of any errors found.
The referendum review committee must then make a decision on whether to give the go-ahead within one month.
If passed, the TSU will have to gather a total of 860,000 petition forms — 5 percent of the voting public in the last presidential election — before the proposal can be put to the ballot box.
Fearing a repeat of last month’s rejection of the more than 110,000 petitions submitted at the time, Huang called on members of the Referendum Review Committee to avoid politicizing the referendum process.
“The committee and the CEC are responsible for aiding the people’s right to a referendum, not blocking it. Committee members should not see the public as the enemy,” Huang said.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant