A plan to increase fines for Taiwanese who work for political organizations in China advanced at the legislature in Taipei yesterday, when a draft amendment to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) passed its first reading.
The draft was proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) after Chang Ching-yi (張經義) — a Taiwanese reporter who works for a Chinese state-run agency — on April 9 did not tell a White House news conference about his company, instead saying: “I am from Taiwan” during his question time with US President Donald Trump.
Chang is a Taiwanese-born employee at Shanghai Media Group (上海文化廣播影視集團), a state-owned mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) on Thursday said Chang broke the law and could be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000 (US$3,322 and US$16,610).
Article 33 of the act states that “any individual, juristic person, organization, or other institution of the Taiwan Area shall not hold any position or become any member of the agencies, institutions or organizations of the Mainland Area which are political parties, the military, the administration or of any political nature and which are prohibited with public notices by the Mainland Affairs Council, Executive Yuan in consultation with each competent authorities concerned.”
The amendment would boost the maximum fine to NT$1 million.
China has used multiple means to “buy off” Taiwanese, having them hired at Chinese organizations and agencies of a political nature, Lin said yesterday, adding that a maximum fine of NT$500,000 was too small to be a deterrent.
Separately yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yeh Yu-lan (葉毓蘭) protested the decision to pass the amendment, saying that all Chinese media firms have state-ownership backgrounds, so the change to the law would in effect be a ban on Taiwanese working for any Chinese media firm.
It is a restriction of people’s right to work, an extremely unwise move in Taiwan, which advocates freedom of speech, Yeh said.
KMT Legislator Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) called on the DPP government not to oppose everything China-related.
Chang, who grew up in Yunlin County and has the chance to ask the US president questions, should be applauded, Hung said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS