Workers’ groups and the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP) yesterday condemned remarks by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) praising China’s Xinjiang policy.
The Taiwan Labor Front, in a news release, called on the government to ban cotton and other agricultural products made by forced labor in Xinjiang, and urged the Ministry of Economic Affairs to check imports of Xinjiang cotton by Taiwanese textile and garment companies.
It condemned Hung’s remarks that the US and other countries had fabricated lies about Chinese repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
Photo: AFP / The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Hung made the remarks while on a Chinese government-sponsored visit to Xinjiang this week.
The Taiwan Statebuilding Party also issued a statement denouncing Hung’s whitewashing of Beijing’s actions, describing it as a renewed cooperation between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT to exterminate Uighur Muslims — similar to the atrocities the two parties had committed in the past.
“We would like to ask the KMT: Do you support China committing genocide against Uighurs?” the statement said.
As a former KMT chairperson, Hung still represents the voice of the party’s conservative faction, it said.
“Hung’s remarks endorsing Beijing’s conduct and programs in Xinjiang have been played up by Chinese state media to cover up Chinese atrocities and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang,” it said.
The statement also asked KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) whether the KMT holds the same view as Hung.
“Does the KMT also think that the internment camps in Xinjiang are fabrications by Western countries?” it said.
“Foreigners who are not familiar with Taiwan’s history and the political situation between Taipei and Beijing might think that Hung’s stance is representative of Taiwan’s largest opposition party to support China’s policy in Xinjiang,” the statement said.
“So we are seeing the KMT walk in lockstep with China, and closely identifying with the values and political ideology of Chinese communists,” it said.
“Looking at the KMT’s history of human rights abuses and atrocities in Taiwan, we believe such a party is no longer qualified to participate in local politics — that it should no longer be a choice for Taiwanese voters,” Taiwan Statebuilding Party officials said.
Hung has visited several places in Xinjiang during her China trip, including visiting a “Xinjiang Antiterrorism and Deradicalization Struggle Exhibition” in Urumqi on Tuesday.
“Xinjiang is a harmonious, joyful, diverse and inclusive society,” Hung was quoted as saying by the Chinese state news outlet China Daily.
“The US and some Western countries have fabricated lies about the so-called ‘forced labor’ and ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang to undermine China’s internal unity,” she said.
“People in Xinjiang once suffered great harm from terrorism and extremist ideologies... The anti-terrorism and deradicalization measures that Xinjiang has adopted have helped those once poisoned by extremist ideologies to gain a correct understanding of law and religion, and improve the living standards of their families through learning skills,” Hung said, endorsing China’s policies of internment and “re-education” of Uighurs.
Governments and human rights groups have over the years condemned and called for investigations of the situation in Xinjiang. The issue came to the fore again on Tuesday with the release of the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of documents and photographs showing Chinese leaders’ involvement in the repression of Uighur Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang.
US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said at the time: “We are appalled by the reports and the jarring images of China’s internment camps... It further adds to an already damning body of evidence of the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] atrocities in Xinjiang.”
The leaked materials are believed to have come from the public security bureau of two districts in Xinjiang, which were hacked and then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and media organizations.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
RSS