Fresh from their recent visit to southeastern Asian countries, representatives from Taiwan's major political parties said yesterday that they remained split as to the extent to which Taiwan should continue its "Go South" policy.
"Our consensus is that we certainly had no consensus at all including the debate on the 'Go South' policy," said DPP Legislator Chang Chun-hung (張俊宏), who also serves as a member of the DPP central standing committee.
Chang made the remark during a press conference at the foreign ministry yesterday after he joined an unprecedented delegation composed of Taiwan's major political party representatives to visit to Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia from Dec. 8 to Dec. 17.
A Taiwanese business man in the Philippines, for instance, has urged the delegation to pass the message to Taiwan's incumbent government to think twice about promoting the "Go South" policy, Chang said.
"The businessmen told us that they would prefer dying to investing again, and asked us not to tell others to take such risks as well," Chang said.
The "Go South" policy was the brainchild of former President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) as part of the government's move to try to divert Taiwanese investment from China. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) earlier this year had rekindled the policy initiatives as well.
PFP Vice Secretary-General Chin Ching-sheng (秦金生) said the opposition parties would not oppose the government's "Go South" policy as long as pertinent measures are to be put into place.
Members of the delegation also included director of the KMT's overseas department Chou Jih-shine (周繼祥), TSU vice secretary-general Huang Chin-lang (黃金郎), among others.
On the president's canceled trip to Indonesia earlier this month, Chang said he has voiced his displeasure with Jakarta's handling of the sensitive issue when he met with the Indonesian vice president.
The veteran DPP lawmaker also said he had suggested Taiwan to suspend its initial plan to grant humanitarian aid to Indonesia following a recent landslide in the country after he learnt of the subsequent unfriendly remarks by the Indonesian foreign minister Hassan Wirayuda.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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