The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday protested outside the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area, urging the government to abolish the organization, as its functions are “frozen” with China closing communication channels between the two sides, while its chairmanship remains vacant.
Former TSU legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) said that the SEF was founded according to the “one China” framework, which is rooted in the Chinese Civil War.
Taiwan should try to break away from the “Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT]-Chinese Communist Party mentality” of the past and reconstruct a mechanism for interactions between Taiwan and China, abolishing the SEF as the first step, Chou said, adding that cross-strait exchanges should be government-to-government dealings monitored by the legislature.
Photo: Lin Liang-sheng, Taipei Times
TSU Department of Organization deputy director Chang Chao-lin (張兆林) said that in the past, the SEF was in charge of negotiations, exchanges and services between Taiwan and China.
However, in the past few years, government agencies from both sides have interacted directly, with the Mainland Affairs Council and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office even establishing a hotline, leaving the foundation with nothing to do, Chang said.
As for services for Taiwanese tourists and businesspeople in China, Chang said the foundation was particularly weak and ineffective in the area.
For instance, when a bus carrying a Chinese tour group caught fire last month, the aftermath was dealt with by tourism associations from both sides, while notarization of documents is being handled by the other government agencies, chang said.
Chang said that the Mainland Affairs Council should be abolished as well, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Asia-Pacific Department assuming responsibility for matters relating to China.
TSU Youth Department deputy director Hsu Ya-chi (許亞齊) said that the foundation has become an organization that hosts banquets and other social events and therefore should not use tax revenue.
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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