The alleged arrest of Taiwanese spies in China has caused an uproar in the media in recent days. Pan-blue legislators were very unhappy with Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday, because she was on her annual vacation and did not show up at the legislature's Interior Affairs Committee to report on the "small three links." They believed she should not try to evade responsibility at such an important time. For this reason they started a signature drive to endorse a resolution condemning Tsai.
People First Party Legislator Tsao Yuan-chang (
Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), another PFP legislator, showed photos of crying family members of Taiwanese business people. He accused the government of not helping the victims and their families. He also accused Tsai of viewing her vacation as more important than the lives of the Taiwanese business people.
But other legislators such as Eugene Jao (趙永清) and Hsu Jung-shu (許榮淑) defended Tsai, saying that it is the partisan brawl that will harm the interests of the Taiwanese business people. MAC Vice Chairman Chen Ming-tung (陳明通) also said that Tsai had not taken any vacation for a year and did not do so until the last week of the year, after receiving a mandatory vacation notice from the Central Personnel Administration. (The Cabinet has make annual vacations mandatory for civil servants and provided incentives in the hope of boosting local tourism.)
At this sensitive time, reports have also surfaced that the Taiwan Affairs Office under China's State Council has summoned the heads of Taiwanese business associations in China to an emergency meeting in Beijing. It has been pointed out that the meeting is scheduled for today at Beijing's official Diaoyutai guest house.
According to what we understand, the heads of Taiwanese business associations in Dongguan, Suzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai have said they received phone calls from the Taiwan Affairs Office recently, asking them to go to Beijing yesterday. The meeting has come under even more scrutiny because this is the first time the office has summoned Taiwanese business people almost a month before the Lunar New Year, because the matter has come in the wake of the Taiwanese spy reports, and because the office has not clarified what it wants to discuss at the meeting.
Some of the association leaders were low-key, saying the office had asked them to attend a meeting in Beijing. They did not, however, explain the content of the meeting, saying they would not know until they got to Beijing. The Taiwan Affairs Office invites Taiwanese business people to a Lunar New Year party every year, but this year's party seems to have been moved ahead. One Taiwanese businessman who said he would attend believed it would be an attempt to ease the business people's worries.
The two sides have crossed swords in recent days over the espionage allegations. On top of this, Taiwan is holding a presidential election in March. The fact that the Taiwan Affairs Office has chosen to hold a meeting with Taiwanese businesses at this sensitive time has created much room for interpretation by the outside world.
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