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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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