Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan is building a bridge too far to China

Jean Wu and Susan Wang

The Taiwan Strait can certainly be characterized as “troubled waters.” Ever since the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) defeated troops retreated to Taiwan at the end of the civil war, there has been tension across the strait, first because of Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) dreams of “recovering the mainland” and more recently because of Beiing’s insistence that Taiwan is part of China.

It is interesting that the KMT has now started to refer to its efforts at reconciliation as a “bridge over troubled waters.” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) used the term in a recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington.

Science park hearing sparks clashes

Taipei Times

Clashes erupted yesterday as environmental activists tried to observe a meeting at the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to review the Central Taiwan Science Park’s Phase-3 zone development.

Scores of environmental activists first protested by pounding on the windows of the conference room where the meeting was being held, accusing the agency of trying to settle the dispute in secret. When some of the activists tried to break through a police cordon, they were blocked and several were carried away by police officers.

Ma still playing the blame game

Taipei Times Editorial

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is looking more and more like a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) version of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ma constantly criticized Chen for his feeble governing and for blaming every problem on 50 years of corrupt KMT rule. Now, when the Ma administration is critical of issues like the environmental assessment of the Central Taiwan Science Park and the dilapidated state of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, it resorts to blaming the Chen administration. How does this make Ma any different from Chen?

ECFA overlooks human rights: watchdog group

Taipei Times

A watchdog organization yesterday accused the government of overlooking human rights and environmental issues while developing closer economic ties with China.

“At the very beginning of a trade agreement signed between the EU and South Korea, it was mentioned that the environment and human rights should be fully respected in trade relations,” Tseng Chao-ming (曾昭明), a member of Cross-Strait Agreement Watch and secretary-general of Corporate Social Responsibility Taiwan, told the forum. “Unfortunately, such issues are not mentioned at all in the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) the government signed with China in June.”

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