Pro-unification opposites
Several Taiwanese stock market analysts at the Shanghai-based Thousand & Billion Education and Trading Co — New Party presidential candidate Yang Shih-kuang’s (楊世光) employer — have been arrested on fraud charges.
Yang reportedly released a statement through the party, attributing the incident to the delay of the legislative approval of the Cross-strait Service Trade Agreement by the Sunflower movement protests in 2014.
Since the agreement was not approved, he said there might be confusion over the operational scope of Taiwanese businesses in the financial service sector and over the recognition of their professional licenses. He urged the Mainland Affairs Council to contact Beijing through its channels as soon as possible and to provide legal assistance to the analysts.
However, the council said that according to the early harvest list of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, which took effect in 2010, the Chinese government should have allowed Taiwan’s securities practitioners to acquire the qualifications required to practice in China long ago.
It is obviously Beijing that is at fault, but Yang does not dare to criticize Beijing.
This incident shows that New Party members actually have little confidence in the Chinese judiciary. Why else would advocates of cross-strait unification turn to the council for help? If China really is as great as they claim, why do they not just face the Chinese judicial system?
The arrests of Chinese human rights lawyers, the disappearances of Hong Kong booksellers, the detention of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) — which led to his death — and the imprisonment of Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲) for posting online critiques show how terrible Beijing’s authoritarian rule is.
Surely the pro-unification camp must feel a lack of conviction next time they clamor so loudly for unification.
How are they going to refute the argument that without democracy and freedom, there is no chance to survive?
Pan Kuan
New Taipei City
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