Fri, Mar 09, 2001 page1

• Blacklists not the DPP's style: Chen

  CONTROVERSY Banning people with unpopular opinions from entering the country is a former KMT practice that shouldn't be followed, the president says

  • By Lin Chieh-yu / STAFF REPORTER
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  The KMT's practice of blacklisting dissidents or banning them from entering the country shouldn't be followed by the DPP government, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday.

  "An individual shouldn't be banned from entering Taiwan simply because of his or her ideology or opinions," Chen said.

  Chen made the remarks while receiving democracy activist Wei Jingsheng (魏京生), one of China's most well known exiled dissidents.

  Wei is currently touring Taiwan, giving lectures on democracy.

  Chen said that were the DPP government to continue the KMT's government's practice of banning political dissidents, Taiwan would have little right to tout its democratic achievements.

  "Our state national security department once offered some names to me to decide whether to ban their entry into Taiwan," Chen told Wei. "I said that if I [approved of the list], then Taiwan would be no different than China."

  Chen's comments yesterday were his first on the brouhaha over the Japanese comic book On Taiwan (台灣論), written by Yoshinori Kobayashi (小林善紀).

  Last week the Ministry of the Interior, saying he was a threat to public safety, announced that Kobayashi would be barred from visiting Taiwan because of the controversy his comic book had created.

  But the Cabinet quickly ordered the ministry to reconsider its announcement, and a final decision on the matter is still pending.

  Many opposition lawmakers and women's groups have severely criticized Kobayashi's book in recent weeks, saying it has hurt Taiwan's dignity.

  In the book, Kobayashi quotes Shi Wen-lung (許文龍) -- a business tycoon and senior adviser to Chen -- as saying that some Taiwanese "comfort women" worked "willingly" at Japanese army brothels during World War II while Taiwan was under colonial rule.

  But some critics, even though they disagreed with the cartoonist's views, said banning Kobayashi wasn't the answer.

  Alice King (金美齡), a Japan-based national policy adviser to the president, returned to Taiwan to defend Kobayashi and his right to visit Taiwan.

  But King herself created a new controversy after saying that she doesn't recognize the Republic of China and considers herself as "an adviser to President Chen," not "a national policy adviser of the ROC."

  King is a hardline pro-Taiwan independence advocate who was once banned by the KMT from returning to Taiwan.

  Both Shi's and King's remarks have led opposition lawmakers to call for Chen to remove them from their posts.

  Reversing his low-profile approach toward the controversy over the past week, Chen said yesterday during his meeting with Wei that he held no biases or prejudices when it came to the selection of his senior and national policy advisers.

  "The makeup of my policy advisers reflects Taiwan's present political spectrum," Chen said. "My advisers include both pro-independence and pro-unification supporters."

  Chen said that he, personally, doesn't fully agree with the views and speeches of some of his advisers.

  However, he said, "I have to respect and defend their right to freedom of speech, even though they may express extreme opinions and oppose each other."

  Chen said that a broad spectrum of opinions would more accurately reflects the viewpoints of Taiwanese people.
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