Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Mark Li (李明星) yesterday urged the government to reconsider its plan to integrate the Overseas Compatriots Affairs Commission (OCAC) with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He said it would send a message to compatriots that the government does not care about them.
Li, who is elected by overseas compatriots, told the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee that his office had received an overwhelming number of letters, e-mails and phone calls expressing displeasure with the government’s proposed plan to set up a ministry of foreign and compatriot affairs (外交及僑務部).
“Why should the OCAC, which was established in 1935, be sacrificed in the government’s efforts to streamline its organizations? The compatriots are still part of the Republic of China, even though they live overseas. They deserve as much respect as citizens that live here,” Li said.
Li said that several staunch pan-blue compatriots have threatened to cancel their KMT membership because the party was “abandoning” them.
Despite President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “diplomatic truce” initiative, “the Beijing government has not relaxed its efforts to lure overseas compatriots to their side,” Li said, warning that disbanding the OCAC could trigger a domino effect that would see lots of compatriots become closer to Beijing.
Research, Development and Evaluation Committee Chairman Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), whose department oversees the government’s organizational restructuring project, said the merger was intended to upgrade the OCAC, not disassemble it.
He said the OCAC has only 16 overseas representative offices, while the foreign ministry has more than 120 embassies and representative offices around the world. Consolidating the two would allow the government to better serve compatriots in all corners of the world, Jiang said.
Under the proposed plan, a deputy minister would be appointed to take charge of compatriot affairs and a separate department would be set up to take care of overseas Chinese education programs.
Ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said the ministry would fully cooperate with any policy initiated by the government.
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