Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Beijing-Seoul FTA suits Taiwan

Huang Tien-lin 黃天麟

Over the past several days, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has rolled out the propaganda machine to alarm the public about the impact on Taiwan that a free-trade agreement (FTA) between China and South Korea would have. The question is, will the China-South Korea pact actually threaten Taiwan in any way?

Taiwan should actually welcome a successful completion of trade negotiations between China and South Korea, and the more liberal the agreement the better for Taiwan it will be. There are several reasons for this.

Premier in court over violent evictions

Taipei Times

Protesters hold banners with Premier Jiang Yi-huah’s portrait outside the Taipei District Court yesterday, where he was questioned about the handling of the Sunflower movement protests.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

Under a heavy police presence and with more than 100 demonstrators calling on him to resign, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday afternoon appeared in court to face charges of attempted murder filed against him and high-ranking police officers in a private prosecution over the violent crackdown on protesters who briefly took over the Executive Yuan in March.

Control Yuan vote another hit to Ma

Taipei Times Editorial

The legislature on Tuesday voted on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) nominations for members of the Control Yuan during its second extraordinary session this summer.

While Chang Po-ya (張博雅) and Sun Ta-chuan’s (孫大川) nominations for the positions of president and vice president respectively were approved, along with 16 of the 27 remaining members, 11 of Ma’s nominations were rejected. Although the Control Yuan can continue to operate until the current term expires today, the outcome of the decisions will have a major impact on Ma and on the operations of the next Control Yuan.

US report slams China’s religious freedom record

Taipei Times

US Secretary of State John Kerry has released Washington’s 16th annual report on religious freedom, which showed stark differences between Taiwan and China.

While there were no reported cases of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious belief or practice in Taiwan last year, it was a much different story across the Taiwan Strait, the report showed.

The report said that Beijing “harassed, assaulted, detained, arrested or sentenced to prison” religious adherents and there were also reports of “physical abuse and torture in detention.”

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