Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Ma’s focus on Xi, not constituency

Taipei Times Editorial

After repeatedly downplaying the possibility of a direct meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while insisting that such a meeting could only take place with the support of the Taiwanese public, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) finally revealed his true intentions in an interview with the Hong Kong-based weekly Yazhou Zhoukan.

Ma was quoted in the interview, released on Wednesday, as saying that although China has ruled out the possibility of a Ma-Xi meeting at next year’s APEC summit, he remains willing to attend the economic summit and meet Xi, adding that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait “need to create the conditions necessary for such a meeting, and we are still in the process of creating these conditions.”

Policy creates mistress economy

Huang Tien-lin 黃天麟

Uni-President Enterprises Corp is going to invest US$30 million to set up a research and development headquarters in Shanghai. The company’s decision once again lays bare the fraudulent nature of “manufacturing in China and receiving orders in Taiwan” — a notion that pro-China academics and media use to rationalize the trend for Taiwanese companies to “go west” and invest in China.

If there is no manufacturing industry left, what research and development is there likely to be? If there is no nation and no sovereignty, what kind of culture and creativity can there be? If industry and the economy are not thriving, how much strategic planning and design is likely to be done?

DPP threatens war over KMT agenda move

Taipei Times

The pan-green camp yesterday criticized Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠) for his insistence on placing the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement on the legislative agenda on Thursday, saying that Chang’s plan would be a violation of party negotiations.

Despite negotiations convened by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) last week that reached a consensus that the screening of the pact would not take place before the final public hearings are held on March 10, Chang, joint convener of the Internal Administration Committee, expressed his intention to deal with the agreement this week.

Groups protest service trade agreement

Taipei Times

Participants in a protest against the cross-strait service trade agreement and closed-door dealings in the legislature perform a skit on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

Without a mechanism to regulate cross-strait negotiation and safeguard local industries, the livelihoods of millions of Taiwanese will be at stake if the government pushes the cross-strait service trade agreement between Taiwan and China through the legislature, hundreds of protesters said yesterday.

“If [the pact] is not screened clause-by-clause, we’ll fight to the very end,” Chen Chih-ming (陳志銘), president of the Kaohsiung Federation of Labor Unions, told protesters, who braved low temperatures and wind to gather in front of the Presidential Office on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei.

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