Two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday demanded that new Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator-at-large Huang Lian-hua (黃良華) resign from his position in a China-based Taiwanese businessmen's club.
"We welcome Huang's appointment [as a legislator-at-large], but we have to wonder: Which country does he represent? Taiwan or China?" DPP Legislator Lin Kuo-ching (林國慶) told a press conference after Huang was sworn in at the legislature yesterday.
Huang, the former head of a China-based Taiwanese business association, replaced Tsao Shou-min (
Lin said that Huang still serves as a consultant at a China-based Taiwanese businessmen's club and enjoys a close relationship with the Chinese government.
Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), the director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), is the club's honorary president.
The club's two vice presidents and 11 percent of its executives are also TAO officials, Lin said.
DPP Legislator Kao Chien-chih (高建智) said he suspected that Huang had been appointed to the legislature to help the KMT mobilize China-based Taiwanese businesspeople to return home next year to vote for KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou(馬英九).
"Of the [businessman's] club's 236 executives, 50 were organizers of a campaign for a Lien-Soong ticket in 2004," Kao said, referring to the pan-blue camp's then presidential candidate Lien Chan (
Huang dismissed the accusations yesterday.
He said that his responsibility as a lawmaker "is to make the voices of 1 million China-based Taiwanese businesspeople and their 3 million family members heard in the legislature."
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