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
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
WEATHER Typhoon forming: CWA A tropical depression is expected to form into a typhoon as early as today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the storm’s path remains uncertain. Before the weekend, it would move toward the Philippines, the agency said. Some time around Monday next week, it might reach a turning point, either veering north toward waters east of Taiwan or continuing westward across the Philippines, the CWA said. Meanwhile, the eye of Typhoon Kalmaegi was 1,310km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, as of 2am yesterday, it said. The storm is forecast to move through central
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
RSS