China’s central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said on Friday that the contents of a cross-strait memorandum of understanding (MOU) or economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) could be modeled after “the experience China had with Hong Kong.”
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Zhou’s remarks suggested that China places Taiwan in the same category as Hong Kong, weakening the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s claim that Taiwan would be on equal footing with China when negotiating a cross-strait economic pact.
DPP Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said that economic cooperation with Beijing, whether signing an MOU on cross-strait financial exchanges or the suggested ECFA, was based on the blueprint of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangements (CEPA) that Hong Kong and Macau signed with China in 2003.
These pacts were all designed using a “one China” framework that would compromise Taiwan’s sovereignty, Cheng said.
The issue of an MOU on mutual financial cooperation is expected to be inked in the third round of cross-strait negotiations between Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, scheduled to take place in Beijing in May or June.
At a press conference on Friday, Zhou said that despite the recent increase in cross-strait financial exchanges, there were still restrictions stifling financial services industries that could be resolved by following the Hong Kong-China model.
Cheng disagreed with Zhou, saying that, despite having signed a CEPA with China, Hong Kong banks still face tremendous barriers in China.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) plan to revitalize Taiwan’s economy by signing an MOU with Beijing was nothing short of wishful thinking, Cheng said, adding that the biggest danger in Ma’s plan would be the potential leakage of customers’ personal information.
Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Poh-chih (陳博志) said China had always made it clear that its ultimate goal of cross-strait integration is to annex Taiwan. He said that China was luring Taiwan into becoming more financially dependent on Beijing.
Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) yesterday told the Taipei Times that the government would not compromise Taiwan’s sovereignty when signing any agreement with China because the status of Taiwan is completely different to that of Hong Kong or Macau.
“If [China] insisted on cross-strait agreements being signed under a political framework, it would be against our wish that cross-strait negotiations should only deal with economic issues for the moment,” Su said.
Su reiterated the government’s position that it would not sign agreements with China under the “one China” principle and again appealed to China to “set aside political disputes.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS