The Presidential Office yesterday downplayed news that Vice President Vincent Siew’s (蕭萬長) daughter attended the Boao forum in China and asked the public to refrain from politicizing the matter.
Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said he understood that Joy Siew (蕭至佑) was an assistant to Tina Lo (駱怡君), managing director of the Industrial Bank of Taiwan.
Her participation in the event was purely work-related, he said.
Siew’s daughter drew media attention when she accompanied Lo to a meeting with Fredrick Chien (錢復), former president of the Control Yuan, and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Saturday.
Chien heads the Taiwanese delegation attending the event in Hainan Province.
Siew’s office yesterday said it was “not a bad thing” for the vice president’s daughter to attend such an international event, as it would “broaden her knowledge.”
Siew said in Chiayi City yesterday afternoon that it was a “simple” matter of his daughter accompanying her boss to an international event.
She is an adult and the forum was organized by a non-governmental organization, he said.
Xi told Chien during a meeting on Saturday that China hoped to see negotiations on an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) “proceed smoothly and without disturbances to achieve results and produce economic benefit soon,” Xinhua news agency reported.
“The two sides should work hard to ensure the signing of an ECFA as early as possible,” he was quoted as saying.
The administration hopes to sign the pact in the first half of this year, while Xinhua reported that it “is hoped to be signed by the end of June.”
The two sides concluded the second round of negotiations in Taoyuan two weeks ago.
Xi also said that recognizing “the mainland and Taiwan belong to ‘one China’ is a fundamental foundation for the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.”
“We always believe that people on the mainland and Taiwan are both Chinese and that the economy of both sides belongs to the Chinese economy, though the two sides have followed different development paths over the past six decades,” he was quoted as saying.
The cross-strait economic cooperation advocated by China is conducive to common prosperity and will help safeguard and expand the Chinese nation’s interests, Xi said.
Meanwhile, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) shrugged off the sensitivity of Siew’s daughter attending the forum as part of her job.
Wu told reporters on his way to an event in Taichung that restricting the activity of Siew’s daughter because of who her father is would be unreasonable in the extreme.
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