Xu Chunying (徐春鶯), a Chinese spouse who the Taiwan People’s Party has said it might put on its legislator-at-large list, is closely associated with the Chinese United Front Work Department, a political commentator and a Taiwan Statebuilding Party legislative candidate said yesterday.
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member and political pundit Lee Zheng-hao (李正皓) said that Xu in 2018 addressed an event in China’s Fujian Province organized by the department to promote cross-strait marriages and cultural exchanges.
Xu told the event that “we are proud of being Chinese, this is our national identity and it will never change,” Lee said.
Photo courtesy of Pop Radio
The event was cosponsored by Taiwanese business associations in China, he added.
Xu attended many such events in China, with media reporting that she represented a “united front” agency, Lee said.
“She has declared her national identity to be Chinese and is proud of it, so how can she become a legislator-at-large in Taiwan?” he asked.
Xu is chairwoman of the Taiwan New Residents’ Development Association.
“Xu is an agent for China’s United Front Work Department,” Lee said. “If she becomes a legislator, it would be the biggest danger to national security in our history. It would mean that the Chinese Communist Party would have direct access to the legislature.”
“I would not accept such a situation and nor would most others,” he said.
Earlier this week, Lee showed photographs of Xu seated in the front row at a “united front” event at Jiao Tong University in Shanghai on Oct. 13, which he said showed her high office in China.
Xu had earlier said she took a trip home to visit her family.
Separately yesterday, Taiwan Statebuilding Party legislative candidate Yang Pei-hua (楊佩樺) said that the party has received photographs and documents of Xu as a guest of honor representing “united front” offices at events in China.
Xu attended several events in Yunnan Province in 2018, where she also met with Yunnan’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Zhang Chaode (張朝德), Yang said.
Zhang told Xu at the time, “you must educate the children to promote a strong identity with China, and enhance their identification with Chinese culture and nationalism,” Yang added.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS