Taipei City Government officials and city councilors yesterday expressed divided views over Deputy Mayor Pai Hsiu-hsiung's (白秀雄) threat to resign from the municipal mainland affairs task force and what some consider his overly accommodating attitude toward China.
Pai, who is in Nanking after concluding the second annual Taipei-Shanghai City Forum yesterday, delivered an opening speech at the forum on Tuesday, discussing Taipei's development and future challenges.
Some so-called "sensitive words" on handouts distributed to attendees, however, had been modified by the Shanghai organizer the night before.
Although Pai reportedly indicated his displeasure with the changes and made oral corrections during the speech, he failed to file an official complaint because, he said, he was "reluctant to sabotage a friendship."
By contrast, Pai threatened to resign from the municipal mainland affairs task force, on which he serves as convener, after the Cabinet's Mainland Affairs Council (陸委會) failed to approve a visit to Kueilin, Kuanghsi Province, planned as part of his 10-day trip to China.
Commenting on the discrepancies, a spokesperson for Taipei City Government, King Pu-tsung (金浦聰), told the Taipei Times that there was no point in Pai showing anger after the organizer had expressed regret over the error.
"It's not necessary to raise hell after they admit that they have done something wrong," said King, a member of the visiting delegation. "We publicly expressed our strong discontent and made oral corrections during the speech, and they also made an apology. That's good enough for us."
Asked whether he thought that the Chinese authorities were themselves behind the incident, King said, "I'm not 100 percent sure anyone from higher up knew about this beforehand, but I told them that no matter who did it, that person must be an airhead and that if that's the way they do things, we'd bring our own printer next time," he said.
As for Pai's insistence on resigning from the municipal mainland affairs task force, King said Pai had a legitimate reason to be upset.
"What Pai is angry about is that the MAC hasn't admitted that it has done or said anything wrong," he said, adding that Pai had notified the council about the planned trip to Kueilin, although the MAC claimed otherwise.
Taipei City councilor James Wei (
"The MAC failed to publicize the whole truth about the planned trip. It makes us seriously doubt its ability to handle cross-strait policy since it cannot win our trust in the first place," he said.
Wei added that Pai had handled the incident in Shanghai "properly."
"It wouldn't have helped already tense cross-strait relations if he had done it any other way," he said.
But Taipei City Councilor Lo Tsung-sheng (
"I have no idea where he stands when he's so weak toward China and so harsh on his own country," he said. "When he comes back, I'll definitely ask him for an explanation on the council floor."
As the two-day forum concluded yesterday, the two sides agreed to take turns hosting the annual event. In addition, the two cities also hope to kick off educational and sports exchanges this summer, including student exchange programs, goodwill baseball games and dragon boat races.
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