Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The 2010 World Cup, identity and Taiwan

Taiwan News Editorial

The opening of the International Federation of Football (FIFA) 2010 World Cup finals began in South Africa this week has excited football (soccer) fans across the globe and also provides an opportunity for reflections on the nature of "national identity" in today's globalized society.

Until the 2002 FIFA World Cup held jointly in Japan and South Korea, the quadrennial contest for the global football championship had almost entirely been the preserve of Europe and Latin America, but is now being hosted for the first time by an African nation.

Ma's push to stampede Taiwan people to ECFA

Taiwan News Editorial

In a rush to sign the bitterly controversial "Cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement" with China by the end of June, President Ma Ying-jeou and leading officials of his Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government have launched an intensive campaign to persuade the public about the benefits of the pact with our authoritarian neighbor and downplay its risks.

KMT Premier Wu Den-yih stated yesterday that the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union have been trying to "frighten" the Taiwan people.

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.”

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