The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday morning demonstrated outside the Grand Hotel in Taipei, where Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Deming (陳德銘) was having a breakfast meeting with former Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤).
Although the protestors had been barred from entering the hotel, they continued to shout slogans such as “Protests against the cross-straits service trade agreement, we love Taiwan.”
TSU Taipei chapter head Chien Sheng-che (簡聖哲) rushed toward the hotel doors waving a poster and shouting the slogan: “Protests China’s barbaric activities” before being directed by hotel security to an area outside the archway in front of the hotel.
Separately, a group of more than 20 men, led by TSU member Chang Chao-lin (張兆林), intended to tell Chen how the Taiwanese were “against the trade agreement, refused to be ruled by Communists and how Taiwan was being betrayed by the deal the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] and the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] were conducting.”
The group was stopped by more than 60 policemen.
Despite the human blockade, Chang and his group shouted out protest slogans as Chen’s motorcade was driving past them when leaving for the day’s activities.
Chang accused Chen of holing up with the KMT and enjoying “a royal treatment,” while being afraid to face the voice of a liberal and democratic Taiwan.
“If the cross-strait service trade agreement was ratified, future progeny of Taiwanese would become the slaves to Chinese and workers of the CCP,” he added.
Inside the hotel, Chen said that “even though the agreement was still pending ratification [by the Legislative Yuan,] the negotiations for the trade of goods across the Taiwan Strait, as well as the system for resolving trade disputes, would not be halted.”
Chen and Chiang exchanged gifts, with Chiang giving Chen a copy of Taiwan, from a Bird’s Eye (鳥目台灣), a collection of short films by director Chi Po-lin (齊柏林), in an aim to help Chen become more acquainted with Taiwan, while Chen gave Chiang with The Qin Empire (大秦帝國), a TV series shot in China, saying that he hoped that together both sides of the Taiwan Strait could create another historical golden age.
Chiang said he hopes both sides adhered to the “economics first, politics later; easy decisions first, tough calls later” approach for cross-trait interaction.
Chen said that he would meet everyone’s expectations and “take cross-strait relations to new heights.”
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