20131025 Translation services part of China¡¦s trap: legislator
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Translation services part of China¡¦s trap: legislator

By Chris Wang / Staff reporter

The liberalization of translation services across the Taiwan Strait, scheduled to take effect following the ratification of the cross-strait service trade agreement, could be part of Beijing¡¦s ¡§cultural unification¡¨ efforts and it would also hurt the sector in Taiwan, a lawmaker said yesterday.

Chinese competitors could leverage their higher capital and lower costs to purchase translation copyrights and squeeze out Taiwanese companies from government tenders once the pact takes effect, Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (³\©¾«H) told a press conference yesterday.

¡§Intellectual property rights of corporate products and confidentiality of government documents would be concerns,¡¨ Hsu said.

¡§The further integration of translation services across the Strait poses another risk ¡X Beijing¡¦s censorship of literary works. In order to gain access to the Chinese market, Taiwanese authors and publishers could be forced to remove content that Beijing deems inappropriate,¡¨ Hsu said.

Government officials at the press conference played down the concerns, with Lee Pei-ju (§õ¨Ø¾§) of the Mainland Affairs Council saying that the Ministry of Economic Affairs¡¦ Investment Commission would place national security and cultural concerns high on its agenda.

Chou Kuo-chin (©P°ê´Ü), a deputy counselor in the ministry¡¦s Department of Commerce, said the sector had been liberalized after the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was signed in 2009, but there is no Chinese investment in the sector at present.

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