Questions continue to dog the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) over how to handle the fate of its leading Macau representative, who removed a ground floor sign at Taiwan's unofficial office in the former Portuguese colony just prior to its handover to China earlier this week. He has been accused of overstepping his administrative bounds and harming "national dignity."
Although controversy still surrounds Macau representative William Li's (
MAC chairman Su Chi (
Local newspapers have speculated Li will be replaced, but Su's response was somewhat vague.
Li's opportunity to return to Taiwan "to take some time off for a while and take care of things, isn't a bad thing," Su said.
Speaking with reporters yesterday, Su said the MAC had unwillingly approved of moving signs from outside the office's ninth and 15th floor offices in doors, but Li had turned the ground floor sign around on his own.
Su said the representative office had learned the signs were going to be defaced if they were not taken down.
What or who issued the threats is still unclear.
Su said that Li had also made two other public statements that the name of the office would be changed, which were never announced by the MAC. "We never said anything about Dec. 20 or Jan. 15 being dates for the announcement of the new name of the office," Su said.
Sources close to the Presidential Office have suggested that Su had to cancel his family trip to Guam to take care of the matter because of orders from "above," although this is something Su denied.
"I didn't feel confident about the situation so I decided to stay," Su said, explaining why he had his family turn around and go home after he had already arrived at the airport.
While many expect Li will lose his post, Su did not appear to be rushing to find his replacement.
One of the difficult aspects of the situation is making sense of the wide range of messages the representative office was given, he said.
"Macau is very special, there are many different people who are involved [in the communication process] and it's not very clear what is going on," Su said. "In the future, communication will be handled through different channels, not through middlemen."
Some scholars say Li should be replaced for acting without approval from the MAC.
Liu Bi-rong (
"If we start off by giving in, it will be difficult to bargain in the future," Liu said. "We should move [Li] out of his position,"
At the same time Su said Taiwan had much to gain from good relations with Macau, expressing a hope that the new century would be the start of improved relations.
"No longer is it relations between Chinese and foreigners, but relations between Chinese and Chinese," Su said.
This coming Monday the name of the representative office will be changed to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, Su said. The office will be under the control of the MAC
Su did not say who would carry the sign to celebrate the renaming of the office, but noted that now Taiwan representatives would now be allowed to participate in a wide range of activities.
Previously, officials were not allowed to participate in public activities because they were viewed as representatives of Taiwan's government.
Whether or not Taiwan citizens will be required to obtain a China visa to gain entry into the former enclave in the future -- as Macau's Special Administrative Region chief executive Edmund Ho has recently suggested -- is still unclear, Su said.
Taiwan residents can currently apply for a visa upon arrival in Macau.
Taiwan has previously suggested any acts deemed hostile could be met with countermeasures, such as denying Macau residents the right to work in Taiwan. Some 35,000 people from Macau currently work in Taiwan. Su did not confirm that such measures were currently under consideration.
Macau was returned to Chinese rule after 442 years as a Portuguese colony last Sunday at a ceremony attended by Chinese President Jiang Zemin (
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