China yesterday put two Taiwanese non-profit organizations and several companies on a “secessionist” blacklist as US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a historic visit to Taiwan.
Pelosi landed in Taipei on Tuesday evening, despite a series of increasingly stark threats from Beijing.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) told a news conference yesterday that punitive measures would be initiated against the Taiwan Democracy Foundation (TDF), the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF) and “diehard Taiwan secessionists.”
Taipei Times file photo
The TDF and the ICDF are affiliated with Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ma said the funds and their alleged donors — including Speedtech Energy, Hyweb Technology, Skyla Corp and Skyeyes GPS Technology — would be banned from engaging in any transaction or cooperating with organizations, enterprises or people in China.
The TDF and the ICDF are engaged in “secessioninst [sic] activities” around the world under the “guise of democracy and development” in a bid to expand Taiwan’s “so-called international space,” he was paraphrased by China’s state-owned Global Times as saying.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) deputy-secretary general Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), who also chairs the TDF, said Beijing has no say in the fund’s operations and its hasty comments are proof of its desperation.
“The TDF will not yield to China,” he said. “The public is called upon to support the foundation to show that bullying will never be accepted.”
The TDF and the ICDF are organizations that serve as conduits for Taiwan to conduct diplomacy and promote international cooperation, and Ma’s comments about the funds are not based on logic or facts, DPP Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) said.
“Beijing’s bullying would achieve nothing except arouse the antipathy of Taiwanese toward China,” he said. “We urge the communist regime in China to stop before it falls into an abyss.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Lin Chia-hsing (林家興) said the punitive measures would not promote the welfare of people on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and Chinese authorities should stop inappropriate policies that harm the relationship between Taiwan and China.
The TDF and the ICDF are bipartisan entities that represent the government and not a single party or faction, he said, adding that half of the TDF’s board were appointed by political parties, including the KMT.
“They cannot be said to be an association composed of die-hard Taiwanese secessionists and do not deserve punitive measures,” Lin added.
Meanwhile, a Skyla spokesman said the company has ever never donated to the ICDF.
While an investigation found that a former employee had made a NT$3,000 contribution to the fund’s medical charity in 2018, the check was issued from the former employee’s personal account and Skyla was not involved in any way, the spokesman said.
Speedtech Energy director Chu Yen-ting (巨彥霆) said he was prompted to contribute “a sum too petty to note” to the ICDF by a friend four or five years ago, adding that he is “pissed off” about being labeled a secessionist in Beijing.
“My company does no business in China. If China wants to call me a die-hard pro-Taiwanese independence, then I will be one,” he said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yun, Fang Wei-chieh, Hsieh Wu-hsiung and Lin Liang-sheng
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