The recent defection of a scientist to China and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) bid to push through legislation on the free economic pilot zones reflect both the failure of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pro-China policy and his attempt to neutralize a strengthening Taiwanese national identity, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday.
“Ma has realized that the rise of a Taiwanese identity would be the biggest roadblock on the path to eventual unification with China, which is why he wants to bring as many Chinese into the country as possible through the establishment of zones and passage of the cross-strait service trade agreement,” TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) told supporters in Greater Taichung.
Huang reiterated his party’s opposition to the special statute governing the zones that is awaiting passage in the legislature, adding that the TSU had good reasons for its disapproval.
Taiwan’s restrictions on Chinese imports and investment — which comply with WTO standards — are “crucial and legitimate because China remains an enemy state that has more than 1,000 missiles aimed at Taiwan,” Huang said.
National security has been a prominent issue on the minds of Taiwanese, in particular among the pan-green camp, but Ma seems to not care about this, the TSU chairman said.
Huang said that instead of trying to bolster national security, the president is doing the exact opposite by relaxing restrictions on cross-strait investment and business in a bid to “water down Taiwanese’s sense of national identity,” especially after the Sunflower movement demonstrated that young Taiwanese have a strong sense of national identity.
“For example, Article 30 of the draft statute essentially constitutes a blank check to the Ministry of the Interior that would give it absolute authority to relax the requirements, procedures, limitations and extensions pertaining to all foreign businesspeople operating in Taiwan,” Huang said.
At an event in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) — who is an aspirant in the New Taipei mayoral election in November — said that the service trade agreement and the economic zones project would “destroy Taiwan’s economy” by opening door to Chinese investment, labor and agricultural imports.
Lin also said that the defection of Chen Kun-shan (陳錕山), who had led the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research at National Central University, was the latest evidence that Ma’s pro-China policy has failed to — as the president claimed it would — eliminate conflict across the Taiwan Strait.
Chen’s defection was part of the Chinese government’s “Thousand Talents Program,” which seeks to attract foreign scientists to China, and emphasized that Beijing has never abandoned its intention to annex Taiwan, Lin added.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS