Academics yesterday called on the government to invite the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize laurete Liu Xiaobo’s (劉曉波) widow, Liu Xia (劉霞), and World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer to Taiwan, as pressure from Beijing is bound to continue regardless.
China has over the past year snatched away diplomatic allies, contrived to terminate Taichung’s right to host the East Asian Youth Games, and demanded that foreign airlines and businesses change how they refer to Taiwan.
Most recently, bakery chain 85°C (85度C) was pressured to show its support for Beijing after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) visited a Los Angeles branch on Sunday last week.
The government should not worry about what Beijing thinks, because even if it backs off or swallows its anger, China’s suppressive actions have come one after another and it appears that they will not be stopping, said Lin Wen-cheng (林文程), a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies.
Taipei should not continue to care when it will be blamed no matter what it does, and will not be able to accomplish anything, Lin said.
The Dalai Lama is a religious leader who is respected around the world, Lin said, adding that Liu Xiaobo made a significant contribution to democracy, even sacrificing his life at the hand of Chinese persecution.
Inviting the Dalai Lama and Liu Xia to Taiwan would make sense, and the international community would approve and understand, Lin said, adding that doing so would not be interpreted as a challenge to Beijing, or an act of resistance.
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took office, his control over speech and activities defending human rights has been stricter than during the regimes of former Chinese presidents Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Chung Hua University professor of public administration Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) said.
Inviting people who have been oppressed by China to visit Taiwan would highlight how much the nation values freedom and human rights, Tseng said.
The government should take the initiative and welcome these people, easing their entry into Taiwan and making a statement to China, he said.
“Subtle methods” over the past two years have prevented the Dalai Lama and Kadeer from entering Taiwan, demonstrating that the nation has been intimidated by Beijing, Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling (邱伊翎) said.
Asked whether the Dalai Lama would stop in Taiwan on his trip to Japan in November, Dawa Tsering, chairman of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, said that it is not that the Dalai Lama does not want to come to Taiwan, but that he cannot come.
Many organizations have invited the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan, but it depends on what would be “a convenient time for the Taiwanese government,” Dawa Tsering said.
‘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
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