Presidential Office Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) did not deliberately keep Taiwanese diplomatic officers out of the loop about his 2016 visit to Indonesia, nor did he meet with any Indonesian officials as alleged by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee chairwoman Alicia Wang (王育敏), and KMT Institute of Revolutionary Practice director Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) and deputy director Yu Shu-hui (游淑惠) on Monday said that Su and his nephew, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Su Chen-ching (蘇震清), had tried to profit from state-owned business operations in Indonesia, citing a declassified telegram sent by the Taipei Economic and Trade Office (TETO) in Jakarta to the ministry in 2017.
The KMT members also allege that Su Jia-chyuan, then the legislative speaker, had gone through Yang Luck International Manpower Group president Kao Shou-tao (高壽濤), who allegedly had ties with the Fujian branch of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
Asked to comment on the accusations at an event in Taipei yesterday, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that Su Jia-chyuan and the ministry had responded on the issue.
“Accusations must be based on facts, instead of spinning a tale by cherry-picking bits of information,” Tsai added.
Asked if she would ask agencies to investigate official records related to Su Jia-chyuan’s trip, Tsai said that people could refer to the ministry’s previous response on the matter.
Ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement on Monday that Su Jia-chyuan did not ask for the ministry’s help during his private trip to Indonesia in September 2016, adding that he did not visit the country in 2017 as the KMT claimed.
Asked to comment on the issue again at a news briefing yesterday, Ou said that his trip in September 2016 was to thank those who had supported Tsai.
Su Jia-chyuan’s office had informed the MOFA that the trip was not an official visit, and that TETO in Jakarta should not arrange any official events or receive him at the airport, Ou said.
He did not consciously keep the Jakarta office in the dark, and the office only met him at the airport, but did not participate in events he scheduled, Ou said.
A MOFA investigation confirmed that Su Jia-chyuan only interacted with local overseas compatriots on the trip and did not meet with local government officials, Ou said.
Representatives of state-owned businesses, when abroad, usually promote communication with the local Taiwan representative office to facilitate affairs, Ou said.
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