Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Anti-ECFA groups join in campaign

Taipei Times

Pro-independence organizations vowed yesterday to launch a long-term campaign against the government’s plan to sign a trade agreement with China and promised to take part in an anti-ECFA rally on June 26.

Officials and representatives from at least eight groups held a joint press conference in Taipei, chanting that they were against “secret negotiations between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and China that sell out a democratic Taiwan.”

President’s credibility on the line with ECFA

Jerome Keating

Any fool nation can sign a trade agreement with China, if it gives Beijing everything it wants. The question of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) is not a matter of trade with China; that’s a no-brainer. Rather, the question is how and under what conditions an agreement is signed. In the case of Taiwan, a potential pact is an issue of the competency and credibility of its president.

A well known visiting professor of international trade negotiations put it this way: “If any of my graduate students proposed entering a trade agreement of such serious proportions as ECFA and ... set a deadline for negotiations ... I would fail him.”

China on the brink of huge social changes

Paul Lin 林保華

Looking at the employee suicides at Hon Hai-owned Foxconn Technology Group’s plant in Shenzhen, China, as a mere labor dispute is superficial. It is easy to see that Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) is a visionary entrepreneur from his response to the events. In one week, he raised workers’ salaries twice — a total of 122 percent.

The raise satisfied workers, stunned competitors and forced the Chinese government to consider the long-term impacts of the decision on China’s development.

Chen’s son withdraws from DPP

Taipei Times

Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) son yesterday withdrew from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and announced he would run for Greater Kaohsiung city councilor as an independent.

Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) declared his intention to run in the year-end elections earlier in the week. His formal announcement yesterday came in the wake of the Taiwan High Court’s ruling on Friday rejecting Chen Shui-bian’s appeal of his conviction on corruption, forgery and money laundering charges. However, sentences and fines were reduced in the second trial for Chen Shui-bian, his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) and six other defendants including Chen Chih-chung.

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