Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Economic policy is flawed: think tank

Taipei Times

Taiwan Brain Trust yesterday said it would not oppose the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) as long as Beijing did not prevent Taiwan from signing free-trade agreements (FTA) with other major trading partners. However, it criticized the government’s economic policy — and its reliance on China — as flawed and misguided.

The trust’s chairman, former vice premier Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), said China represented about 70 percent of the nation’s total overseas investment, while 42 percent of Taiwan’s exports went to China and Hong Kong, making Taiwan economically vulnerable via-a-vis China.

Reviews for referendums need to be re-examined

Chen Miao-fen 陳妙芬

Proposals for a referendum on the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) have been turned down a record four times in a row, prompting widespread demand for the Referendum Act (公民投票法) to be amended. As well as lowering the thresholds for holding referendums in terms of the number of proposers and the number of votes required for a referendum to pass, and defining the effects of referendums more clearly, people are calling for the abolition of the Referendum Review Commission (RRC, 公民投票審議委員會), which is such an obstacle to holding referendums.

Voters can either save Ma or save the nation

James Wang 王景弘

A US-based high-ranking official who served under the administration of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) used to offer a standard response to any overseas Taiwanese who wanted Taiwan to be annexed by China. He would say, — and not without a degree of satisfaction — that advocates of this position should first move back to Taiwan and then see how they felt about the issue.

This strikes at the very heart of what democracy is. Any changes to the sovereign status, political system or way of life in Taiwan should be decided by Taiwanese. People living overseas, on the other side of the world, should keep their opinions to themselves if they’re not prepared to live with the consequences.

Taiwan: Men without Jobs and Other Stories

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

In one of those strange cultural matters that are hard to interpret, Shih Ming-teh, a former DPP chairman chose an unusual way to celebrate his 70th birthday on January 15. Shih unveiled a photo of him lying naked with his two naked daughters lying on top of him. The photo is titled "three layers of meat," again a strange way for a father to refer to himself and his two naked daughters. I leave that for Taiwanese to interpret Shih's mind and intentions. What I wish to focus on are two related matters.

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