A Chinese dissident said yesterday that Beijing had picked former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) to be Taiwan’s representative at APEC months before this week’s announcement.
Yuan Hongbing (袁紅冰), former president of Guizhou Teachers’ College Law School, told a press conference held by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) that Lien’s appointment was not news to him because his friends in Beijing had told him about it months ago.
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said he knew Ma wanted former foreign minister Fredrick Chien (錢復) to represent him at the forum, but Beijing asked Ma to pick Lien.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
Huang said Ma was being controlled by Beijing and he had become a Chinese puppet.
On Wednesday Ma appointed Lien as his representative at the APEC Forum in Peru next month.
Yuan said Beijing convened a high-level meeting soon after Ma won the presidential election in May to form its Taiwan strategy.
He said China would offer Taiwan some benefits to show “goodwill” and help Ma win a second term and was prepared to expand political, economic and cultural exchanges.
China would try not to confront Ma before 2012, Yuan said, but during Ma’s second term Beijing would bring highly political issues to the table and attempt to push Taiwan into a unification framework.
“The strategy is to take over Taiwan without the use of military force by 2016,” Yuan said.
Yuan warned the people of Taiwan not to allow themselves to be deceived by Beijing.
Huang said that Yuan was an advocate of the rule of law and freedom in China, who was persecuted following the crackdown on China’s pro-democracy movement in 1989.
In March 1994, he was arrested at Beijing University and “secretly transferred to Guizhou and detained there for about six months.”
Yuan escaped China in 2004 and now lives in Australia, where he is a voice for Chinese democracy, Huang said.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
ENTERTAINERS IN CHINA: Taiwanese generally back the government being firm on infiltration and ‘united front’ work,’ the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association said Most people support the government probing Taiwanese entertainers for allegedly “amplifying” the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, a survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association showed on Friday. Public support stood at 56.4 percent for action by the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Culture to enhance scrutiny on Taiwanese performers and artists who have developed careers in China while allegedly adhering to the narrative of Beijing’s propaganda that denigrates or harms Taiwanese sovereignty, the poll showed. Thirty-three percent did not support the action, it showed. The poll showed that 51.5 percent of respondents supported the government’s investigation into Taiwanese who have
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
RSS