The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan yesterday acknowledged that it has failed to comply with the government’s ban prohibiting People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizens from entering the county’s overseas representatives’ official residences.
The office made the remarks in response to a report published by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) yesterday, which said that representative to Japan Shen Ssu-tsun (沈斯淳) had allowed Chinese catering workers unrestricted entry into his official residence for a long time.
The newspaper quoted an anonymous source as saying that Shen frequently hosted Taiwanese and Japanese dignitaries at his house and that the employees of the catering companies he hired mostly had PRC citizenship.
“Whenever there was a dinner banquet, the Chinese catering workers could be seen going in and out of Shen’s residence, as if the ‘no Chinese allowed’ ban was only a dead letter,” the source said.
The source said that aside from a surveillance camera installed in the kitchen, there is no other security equipment set up in Shen’s home to prevent people with a hidden agenda from recording potentially sensitive information from conversations between the representative and his guests.
“If one of the Chinese employees plug a wiretapping device or placed a hidden video camera in Shen’s house, the consequences could be unimaginable,” the source added.
A Taiwanese student working part-time at the security office at Shen’s residence, who requested anonymity, said he and his colleagues had tried to stop the Chinese workers from entering the premises several times, but “someone from above” later informed them that “it is okay to let them in.”
“Some of the Chinese catering workers even refused to wear identification badges,” the student said.
When approached for comment by the Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper yesterday, an official at the representative office acknowledged that the office had been negligent in its responsibility to uphold the ban and that it would request its contracted caterers to refrain from hiring people with Chinese nationality.
Shen said he attached great importance to the security of the representative office and that the caterers only hired Chinese people due to budget concerns.
“I will communicate with the caterers to better ensure the security of the office,” Shen said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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