Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) questioned Premier Simon Chang (張善政) yesterday over a Chinese official’s remarks that a project to build a high-speed rail system connecting Beijing and Taipei has gone through “multiple meetings” between China and Taiwan.
The Beijing-Taipei railway project was announced as part of China’s five-year plan at the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing on Saturday last week.
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) said on Tuesday that it is not China’s call to decide whether such a railway is to be built.
“It is within our purview,” Hsia said.
Chang said China’s unilateral announcement was not welcome.
Chiu yesterday cited Wang Mengshu (王夢恕), a Chinese National People’s Congress member and a railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, as saying in an interview with Hong Kong media that the project has been discussed with staff and experts from Taiwan’s transportation and construction departments “more than 10 times.”
“According to a Chinese news report from October last year, Wang, along with [professionals from other countries] in September 2015 invited entrepreneurs and experts from Taiwan’s RSEA Engineering Corp (榮工工程), Sino Geotechnology, Inc (富國技術工程), Sanli Geotechnology Consulting Co (三力技術工程) and National Chung Hsing University for a discussion about building an underwater tunnel and a possible plan for the construction of the tunnel,” Chiu said.
Chang said there were no officials among the visiting group, but Chiu interrupted him to say that RSEA Engineering Co, “while now a privatized company, sold its shares to L&K Engineering Co (亞翔工程), whose chairman, Kenneth Yao (姚祖驤), has a particularly close relationship with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).”
“I highly suspect that Ma has known about the plan all along,” Chiu said.
The lawmaker said that in November 2012, another seminar about a possible tunnel in the Taiwan Strait was held in Taipei, which Sinotech Engineering Consultants Ltd (中興工程顧問公司) chairman Tsao Shou-min (曹壽民) attended.
“[According to another report,] Tsao then said that the construction of an underwater tunnel connecting China and Taiwan would help cross-strait interaction and unification,” Chiu said.
“Who is Tsao? He is a former KMT legislator and was the director of the Taipei Department of Transportation when Ma was the Taipei mayor. His appointment to the chairmanship of Sinotech was also made by Ma,” Chiu added.
Chiu said it therefore could be said that the so-called Beijing-Taipei railway is definitely not “appearing out of nowhere.”
“Wang even said there is yet another meeting about the railway to take place later this month in Chengdu, China,” she added.
Chang said even if there were discussions, “I believe that they were all about the technology itself, as a kind of challenge to be overcome, rather than involving political considerations.”
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