China is forcing Taiwanese businesspeople to attend an economic summit between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a top Mainland Affairs Council official said yesterday.
Council Chairman Joseph Wu (
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) reported yesterday that the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of China's State Council had issued an order to the heads of more than 80 Taiwanese business associations in China to attend the forum.
The office warned that failure to comply would result in stiff penalties, the report said.
The office has also ordered Taiwanese businesses nationwide to mobilize in Xiamen and Shanghai to greet former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
The Liberty Times report said that many of the associations are angry that they are being coerced to participate in what they called a meaningless event.
Wu said the Mainland Affairs Council has verified that official letters were sent to the heads of Taiwanese associations requesting they attend the forum.
"We disapprove of China's actions, which greatly bothers Taiwan's businesspeople," Wu said.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) met with Lien last year, Chinese officials only demanded that Taiwanese businesspeople in Shanghai show up to support Lien's visit.
According to the Liberty Times story, Hu then hosted a banquet for more than 100 Taiwanese businesspeople, but made a quick exit along with other top Chinese officials, leaving his "guests" to foot the bill.
Wu also warned the KMT yesterday that the Mainland Affairs Council will not recognize any conclusions reached at forum on issues that involve government authority such as cross-strait charter flights.
"Taiwanese officials' participation cannot be ruled out for any negotiations that require governmental authority. Otherwise they [such negotiations] would be illegal and ineffective," Wu said.
He said China is using a "carrot and stick" strategy, only it was just paying "lip service" instead of carrots. Most of its promises or goodwill attempts are "not true," he said.
"But the `stick part' that China is implementing could not be more genuine," he said. "Its suppression of Taiwan's diplomatic space and its military build-up never stop."
Wu said that Beijing continues to take advantage of the confrontation between Taiwan's ruling and opposition parties and manipulates the conflicts in order to divide this country and besmirch its sovereignty.
"Coupling military threats and sweeteners is China's new strategy for dealing with Taiwan," Wu said.
In response to pan-green criticism about the CCP-KMT forum, KMT caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) called on the government not to thwart an effort to boost the economy and rescue the poor.
"The five issues for the forum -- advancing cross-strait economic and financial exchanges and agricultural cooperation, opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists, and implementation of direct links -- are irrelevant to politics," Pan said.
Given that the government has made pursuing independence its priority and has no ideas to boost the economy, the KMT is obliged to take initiative to improve cross-strait relations, Pan said.
KMT Legislator Kuo Su-chun (
"[The pan-green camp] is incapable of improving cross-strait relations, and so they do not want to see other people succeed," he said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus whip David Huang (
Huang urged Lien to make public this week's discussions with Hu upon this return. He also said the former KMT boss must protest China's military threats toward Taiwan.
TSU Secretary-General Lo Chih-ming (
Lo also criticized the government, saying it was "incredible' that an administration with an "active management and effective opening" policy would allow Lien to go to Beijing again.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS