China has begun to employ the "non-peaceful means" sanctioned in its recently adopted "Anti-Secession" Law, forcing Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) founder Hsu Wen-lung (許文龍) and other Taiwanese doing business in China to publicly criticize Taiwan's independence and support China's legislation, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
Targets
"The target of these [non-peaceful means] is just as we predicted. Targeting Taiwanese doing business in China is China's first step," a MAC statement issued yesterday said.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Hsu wrote in an open letter published on the front page of the Chinese-language Economic Daily News that "Taiwan and the mainland belong to one China, and people across the Strait are all related." Hsu's statement was timed to coincide with Saturday's mass rally in Taipei protesting the Anti-Secession Law.
Speculation that Hsu had not written the open letter of his own will but at the behest of Chinese authorities has been rampant. The MAC confirmed for the first time yesterday that Hsu had not written the letter himself but had merely signed the statement.
The council did not elaborate on the source of its information.
Last year, an editorial in China's government mouthpiece the People's Daily accused Hsu of "using money made on the mainland to support independence" and made clear that investment in the Chinese market by pro-independence businesspeople was unwelcome.
`Choose sides'
"Since March 14 [when the Anti-Secession Law was passed] China has been working to cause the deterioration of cross-strait relations and has not turned back since," the statement read, saying that authorities had forced Taiwanese students and businesspeople in China to "choose sides."
"Frankly speaking, China should know that in Taiwan's democracy, a person should at least have the right to remain silent. Perhaps I don't like independence, or unification, but at least I have the right to silence," Council Spokesman Chiu Tai-san (
In the statement, the council accused Beijing of promoting its agenda by requiring Taiwanese students and businesspeople in Guangdong, Beijing, and Shanghai to support the Anti-Secession Law in exclusive interviews carried in the state media, of forcing Hsu to publish an open letter whose content China had dictated, and of pressing the heads of Taiwanese businesspeoples' associations to support Beijing's legislation.
The statement further accused China of playing a game of sticks and carrots, preventing Taiwanese businesspeople, students, and politicians who have publicly criticized Beijing's law from traveling to China and Hong Kong.
More laws
Chiu also said yesterday evening that forcing Taiwanese business-people to publicly support China's legislation was but the first step. He pointed to Beijing's emergency and national mobilization bills, legislation that is slated to follow the anti-secession bill.
"Countless numbers of Taiwanese have already made clear their opposition to the Anti-Secession law during the [Saturday] rally ... the council calls on China to put an immediate halt to these destructive measures and provocations," the statement read.
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