National Taiwan University economics department chairwoman Jang Show-ling (鄭秀玲) yesterday called on the government to renegotiate the cross-strait service trade agreement because of what she called its unequal terms and violation of 2001 Nobel Economics Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz’s definition of free-trade agreements.
Taiwan and China inked the cross-strait service trade agreement in Shanghai in late June. If ratified by the Legislative Yuan, it will open up 55 non-financial services sub-sectors to Chinese investment, including printing, tourism, restaurants, packaging, delivery service, car rentals and the hair and beauty industry.
Jang said the agreement was completely against democratic principles, saying that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration kept the nation in the dark by not holding public hearings about the agreement prior its signing, and also kept the legislature from being involved until after the signing.
“We are a democratic society governed by law; can the [Taiwanese] accept an agreement based on backroom deals?” Jang asked, adding that “the people are not against the Ma administration for dealing with China, but they are adamantly opposed to the Ma administration’s signing of an agreement with China that is riddled with serious flaws.”
Jang said that the agreement fulfilled none of Stiglitz’s definition of “basic principles” in free trade in an article published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper in July, explaining that “any trade agreement has to be symmetrical ... no trade agreement should put commercial interests ahead of broader national interests ... there must be a commitment to transparency.”
Opening up the beauty and hair sectors to China would harm local industries that are already at a disadvantage, Jang said, adding that allowing Chinese investment in printing and telecommunications posed risks to national security, as they were central to freedom of speech and privacy of communication.
The agreement would only benefit larger corporations and would have a destructive impact on the medium, small, and even micro, businesses that form 99 percent of Taiwan’s tertiary sector, she added.
When faced with Chinese companies — whose modus operandi is the monopolization of the entire market from production, manufacture, to distribution — as well as other domestic competitors backed by state-owned corporations, these industries would have no choice but to fall like dominos, Jang said, adding that the domino effect would directly affect more than 4 million Taiwanese workers.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS