Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday repeated a call for China to apologize for allowing products contaminated with melamine to be exported to Taiwan.
This was the second time the premier issued the call, after similar remarks made on the legislative floor on Sept. 30.
“It would be better that [China] offer an apology before [Chinese Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman] Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) comes [to Taiwan],” Liu said yesterday.
Chen is scheduled to visit Taiwan later this month or early next month for a second round of negotiations with his Taiwanese counterpart, Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤).
Liu made the remarks in response to questions from Democratic Progressive Party legislators Pan Meng-an (潘孟安) and Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如) during a legislative question-and-answer session.
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛), also at the session, said the council had sent the request to China through cross-strait communication channels. She said the council had released a statement on Sept. 14 asking China to apologize.
Citing a survey released by the MAC on Wednesday showing that 52 percent of the public wanted China to offer an apology for the contaminated food products, Pan demanded that Liu get China to apologize for the scandal.
However, Chinese Nationalist Party Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) disagreed.
Questioning Liu later yesterday on the legislative floor, Ting said that demanding an apology would turn it into a “political issue” that would hamper other cross-strait issues, such as direct transportation, during the coming talks.
Lai disagreed, saying the melamine problem was a food safety issue and not a political one.
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