China’s Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone project is partly politically motivated, the nation’s spymaster said in the legislature yesterday, adding his voice to those of lawmakers who suspect ulterior motives behind the project.
China set up the zone in its Fujian Province and has suggested that Taiwan participate in its development under “five commons” — common planning, common development, common operation, common management and common benefits.
In a Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee meeting, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) questioned National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) about the project.
“Do you consider the Pingtan project to be politically motivated?” Tsai Huang-liang asked.
Tsai Der-sheng said any China policy concerning Taiwan involved political motivations and the Pingtan project was no different.
“I think it is somewhat politically motivated, but not entirely,” he said.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) instructed a Fujian provincial delegation before it departed for Taiwan to do a good job of explaining the project and added that the delegation could contribute toward Beijing’s “great reunification mission,” Tsai Huang-liang said.
“What do you think of this?” he asked the bureau chief.
“If the Pingtan project involved unification efforts such as those alluded to by Xi, I would say I do not support such a project,” Tsai Der-sheng said.
“I would publicly oppose any cross-strait proposal that jeopardizes national security,” he added.
The DPP has expressed opposition to the Pingtan project mainly because of the ostensibly political motives behind the “five commons” in promoting China’s “one country, two systems (一國兩制)” as a paradigm for cross-strait relations.
Turning to cross-strait investment, the bureau chief said that while Taiwanese are prohibited from serving as officials in the Chinese government or joining the Chinese Communist Party, 169 Taiwanese were reported to have violated this rule.
According to the bureau, 73 of those individuals serve as members of the Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in various Chinese cities.
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said only one of the 169 was punished because it was difficult to confirm and identify those people and hand down punishments.
Lawmakers also told the meeting they were concerned about the government’s inability to monitor personnel and capital flows between Taiwan and China amid more frequent cross-strait exchanges and further relaxation of Chinese investment in Taiwan.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡), DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) and Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Huang Wen-ling (黃文玲) said they feared that further relaxation of rules on Chinese investment in Taiwan would jeopardize national security and facilitate the political agenda of visiting Chinese delegations.
As the nation is scheduled to further open its service, public construction and manufacturing sectors to Chinese investors, the most crucial aspect is “whether we’re ready, not how many categories will be open,” Tsai Der-sheng said.
However, the bureau said in its report to the legislature that with its current resources, monitoring the investment, investigating possible political motives and taking countermeasures in a timely manner would be extremely difficult.
It would also be difficult to monitor visiting Chinese officials, such as Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中), vice chairman of the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, who claimed he had visited more than 340 townships in various trips to Taiwan, Tsai Der-sheng said.
Meanwhile, the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee reached a resolution demanding that the MAC and the NSB submit reports on visiting Chinese delegations and the 169 Taiwanese suspected of serving as Chinese officials within a month.
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