President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) recent sense of urgency about joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his deliberate linking of the TPP and the completion of the cross-strait service trade agreement had a political agenda behind them and Ma has completely “missed the point” of Taiwan’s pursuit of joining regional economic integration, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
After saying two-and-a-half years ago that Taiwan would try to join the TPP in eight years, Ma has suddenly changed his tune on the issue, saying on Jan. 1 that Taiwan should join the agreement “as soon as possible” and organized a series of seminars for Taiwanese diplomats this week on the topic.
Meanwhile, Ma has demanded that the legislative caucus of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) quickly pass the service trade agreement between Taiwan and China, so that other countries will be convinced that Taiwan would be a responsible signatory for every trade pact it signs.
Ma’s position has precisely echoed Beijing’s perspective, as Chinese officials said Taiwan must complete follow-up agreements under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement before it supports Taiwan joining the TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership at the first cross-strait governmental meeting in 65 years in Nanjing last week, DPP Policy Research Committee executive director Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) told a press conference.
“It appeared that Ma was trying to make the opposition parties the scapegoat for stalled screening of the agreement in the legislature and the slow progress of the TPP negotiations,” Wu said.
By raising the TPP issue, Ma “was actually trying to push through the controversial service trade agreement to pave the way for a potential meeting between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Wu added.
The public and the DPP were concerned about the service trade pact because the negotiation had been opaque and there had been little consultation before it was signed, Wu said, adding that even KMT lawmakers were worried about the negotiation process and that was why a resolution demanding legislative screening was reached.
In terms of the TPP, Taiwan’s real obstacles are self-imposed, DPP Department of International Affairs director Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠) said, because the more important tasks involve deregulation, market opening and industrial upgrade and adjustment.
As bilateral negotiation with the 12 current TPP members would be required once Taiwan enters the second round of TPP talks, the Ma administration is advised to establish an inter-agency task force to comprehensively study each TPP member rather than holding meaningless diplomat seminars, Liu said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its