Summer tours to China organized by the China Youth Corps are being conducted in collaboration with Chinese propaganda units, the Mainland Affairs Council said on Thursday.
Schools in Taiwan should not dance to the tune of China’s propaganda and should refrain from posting or distributing promotional material for such tours, council spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said.
Furthermore, organizations in Taiwan and China are prohibited from recruiting students for China’s educational institutions, Chiu said, citing the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The council would continue to monitor related developments, he said in response to media queries about reports that the organization has been recruiting senior-high school students for educational trips to China this summer.
The China Youth Corps has reportedly been offering to help students assess future trends in education and employment.
The summer tour activities promoted by the organization were being organized in collaboration with the “Kunming Taiwan Compatriots Fraternal Association” in Yunnan Province and the “China Friendship Association of Cultural Circle in Beijing,” which are both considered propaganda units working against Taiwan, Chiu said.
The China Youth Corps was established in 1952 to help train young people as a force to fight communism, but over the years its focus has gradually shifted to providing recreational services to young Taiwanese at home and abroad.
Separately, Chiu said that Taiwanese are urged not to participate in any discussions related to China’s “one country, two systems” formula at the upcoming Straits Forum in Xiamen, China, as the forum is part of Beijing’s scheme to ultimately annex Taiwan through a “united front” strategy.
Taiwanese organizations and citizens are not permitted to sign agreements or memorandums of understanding, strike illegal deals or forge alliances with Chinese authorities that conflict with national interests, he said, reiterating the council’s position on the issue.
Organizers of the Straits Forum, scheduled for Saturday next week, have added 300 to 500 slots for complimentary trips for first-time participants, sources said.
There are six itineraries to choose from, each lasting four days, and they include tourist hot spots such as the ancient city of Zhangzhou, the Caoan Temple in Quanzhou and Gulangyu in Xiamen, they said.
Organizers reportedly hope to promote Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “five points” — announced in a speech in January about Taiwan that included a plan to explore a Taiwanese version of the “one country, two systems” formula — during the tours, the sources said.
The agenda for the forum was previously published a month before it was scheduled to take place, but this year’s agenda is nowhere to be found on its Web site, which is unusual, they said.
Deputy mayors from Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung have been scheduled to attend the forum, they added.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
‘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