Chinese officials encouraged the fugitive former chairman of the Tuntex Group, Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪), to announce that he had made a donation of NT$10 million to President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) 2000 election campaign, a local Chinese-language magazine reported.
The latest issue of Win-Win Weekly reported that a group of mid-ranking officials at the Taiwan Affairs Council under the Chinese State Council suggested that the fugitive write letters to the Taiwanese media in a bid to derail the president's reelection campaign.
The officials told Chen Yu-hao that by doing so he would win favor among the authorities in Beijing, the magazine quoted a source close to him as saying.
Chen Shui-bian, in an interview with SET TV on Friday night, said he suspected there might be a group responsible for the fugitive's donation "revelation" but did not say who the group might be.
"Many things can happen during campaigning," Chen said, recalling a legislator's accusation that he had received a donation from former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Alexander Huang (黃介正) said yesterday that the magazine's report could not be confirmed but said that China's attempts to influence the presidential election had become "more mature and skilled."
But Chen Chung-hsin (
He described China's arrangement of interviews for the media and meetings between the alleged spies and family members as puzzling.
"Perhaps our national security units have obtained more evidence showing the arrests are part of a plot by China to influence our election. But I am not sure about this and I have no access to the information," Chen said.
But he suspected China might be getting up to some mischief.
"We have to be very alert," he said.
With both military threats and aggressive rhetoric failing to coerce the electorate into voting China's favored candidates into office in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections, China this time hoped to place pressure on Taiwan through the US government, Huang said.
But China's trickery "is not over yet," Huang said, adding that it was difficult to speculate at this moment whether China's strategy to influence the election would be more successful than those used in 1996 and 2000.
It was difficult to predict whether China would keep lashing out in an attempt to turn the presidential campaign in its favor, Huang said.
Huang also said the US had not always acted in the way China had hoped it would concerning Taiwan affairs.
He said the US wanted to maintain a neutral stance on cross-strait matters, saying it would respect the choice of the Taiwanese people in this presidential election.
Su Chi (
The US' impact on this year's presidential election would be much greater than that of China, said Su, adding that the arrests of supposed Taiwanese spies should not be linked to the election campaign.
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS