Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday called for an investigation into allegations that former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration did not hand over all confidential information on his 2015 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration.
Ma and Xi met in Singapore on Nov. 7, 2015, the first time the leaders of Taiwan and China had met.
A report published yesterday by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) alleged the Ma administration did not turn over key documents detailing how the meeting was negotiated.
Photo: Reuters
The public was kept in the dark about a proposed Ma-Xi meeting until the Liberty Times reported on it on Nov. 3, 2015, one day before the Presidential Office held an international news conference to announce the summit.
Yesterday’s Liberty Times report quoted an anonymous high-level official in the Tsai administration as saying that there are no documents showing how Taipei and Beijing interacted, or how they made arrangements for the summit.
The only documents about the meeting are basic government communications following the announcement of the meeting, the official said, adding that the Ma administration might have resorted to secret, non-governmental channels to approach Beijing.
DPP Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) called on the government to investigate the allegations.
It has been standard practice since former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) administration to keep records of cross-strait interactions, including pre-meeting negotiations and in-meeting discussions, which could help future governments determine how to interact with China, Tsai Yi-yu said.
“The Ma-Xi meeting was the highest-level meeting between the two leaders. How could there be no pre-meeting arrangement? Why are there no records about pre-meeting negotiations? It can be reasonably presumed that such records were kept, but the Ma administration did not hand over all the documents,” he said.
“It is irresponsible practice. The continuity of government should not be disrupted because of a transition of power,” he said.
According to the Criminal Code and the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), people found to have destroyed or concealed classified information can be jailed for up to five years or a maximum of seven-and-a-half years if the perpetrators are government officials, he said.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said government data integrity is important to understand government actions prior to the historic meeting.
“It remains a public concern whether there was any trade-off and whether Taiwan’s interests were sacrificed during negotiations,” Lo said. “Whether Ma’s mentioning of the ‘one China’ principle was an improvisation or a decision made during the pre-meeting process should be clarified.”
At the meeting Ma affirmed the “one China” principle of the so-called “1992 consensus,” without mentioning the “different interpretations” of the framework, which provoked heated criticism as it was considered an unacceptable compromise with Beijing.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted that he made up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Additional reporting by Stacy Hsu
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
‘SALAMI-SLICING’: Beijing’s ‘gray zone’ tactics around the Pratas Islands have been slowly intensifying, with the PLA testing Taiwan’s responses and limits, an expert said The Ministry of National Defense yesterday condemned an intrusion by a Chinese drone into the airspace of the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) as a serious disruption of regional peace. The ministry said it detected the Chinese surveillance and reconnaissance drone entering the southwestern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone early yesterday, and it approached the Pratas Islands at 5:41am. The ministry said it immediately notified the garrison stationed in the area to enhance aerial surveillance and alert levels, and the drone was detected in the islands’ territorial airspace at 5:44am, maintaining an altitude outside the effective range of air-defense weaponry. Following
RSS