The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said that a proposal to allow Chinese to make transit stops in Taiwan en route to other nations would not be included in the agenda of the 11th cross-strait summit to be held next week.
The council made the remarks at a Taipei news conference on the upcoming summit between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), in Fuzhou, China, from Monday to Wednesday next week.
“We had hoped to be able to make public a consensus forged by both sides of the Taiwan Strait on the [transit stops] issue at the approaching summit. However, given that we have yet to settle on the issues of greatest concern to each side, a consensus might not be reached before the meeting,” MAC Deputy Minister Lin Chu-chia (林祖嘉) told reporters.
Lin would not be drawn on questions over whether the “delayed publication of common opinions” meant the agreement reached between MAC Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) during a meeting in Kinmen in May was a “bounced check.”
The pair said they would forge a consensus on the transit stops issue in the middle of this year and make public their opinions at the summit.
“Our side wants to separate the issues of transit stops and optimizing flight routes across the strait, given that the former is common international practice and can be implemented instantly, while the latter requires more time for discussion,” Lin said.
“Unfortunately, the mainland [China] aspires to see results on both issues,” Lin said, adding that the council would nonetheless continue its endeavor to obtain a green light for Taipei’s cross-strait layovers proposal.
Regarding an agreement on the avoidance of double taxation, which is to be signed at the summit, a Ministry of Finance official said the agreement is expected to alleviate the tax burden of Taiwanese businesspeople and corporations in China and increase Taiwan’s appeal to foreign investors.
Director of International Finance Sung Hsiu-ling (宋秀玲) said that after the agreement takes effect, it is estimated to reduce the tax burden on China-based Taiwanese companies by NT$4 billion (US$122.5 million) and bring the government additional annual tax revenue of between NT$8.1 billion and NT$13.3 billion.
As for a cross-strait aviation safety agreement also to be inked at the summit, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wu Meng-feng (吳盟分) said it would allow aviation personnel on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to examine and repair aircraft belonging to the other side.
“This will significantly reduce airline companies’ operating costs, boost their global competitiveness and decrease the frequency of delayed flights due to mechanical problems,” Wu said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS