Parents of students at Taipei Zhongshan Girls High School yesterday vowed to sue the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation for allegedly exploiting students for political propaganda and objectifying women during a visit the foundation organized for a Chinese university group.
The school’s parents’ association said in a statement that the image and personal rights of students were violated, as photographs and videos of them were shown in news reports.
It also decried the “disorderly” situation and accused the foundation of exploiting students for political aims during the group’s tour of the school on Wednesday last week.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
It was among several controversies during the visit.
Chinese state media reported that the group had received an “enthusiastic reception,” characterizing Taiwanese high-schoolers as “fans pursuing celebrities.”
Ma Long (馬龍), an Olympian Chinese table tennis player, was part of the group.
State media gave the event prominent coverage, with some headlines describing it as “Tang Seng entering the Silken Web Cave” (唐僧進盤絲洞), a literary reference to the novel Journey to the West (西遊記).
“That reference was to the most erotic scene among the four best-known Chinese classic novels,” writer and publisher Joyce Yen (顏擇雅) said.
Taiwanese students on Wednesday launched a petition to demand that Zhongshan Girls High’s principal make a public apology, saying that the news reports were widely circulated on Chinese social media, denigrating the students and violating their personal rights.
The group completed its trip and departed from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday morning, with some people bidding them farewell, while others held protest signs.
Foundation chief executive Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) dismissed the complaints by students and parents’ groups, saying they are all pan-green camp supporters.
“I call on the Mainland Affairs Council [MAC] not to use martial law mentality to block cross-strait interactions. If it does so, it would be laughed at by the international community,” Hsiao told reporters at the airport.
At a farewell dinner for the group, nearly all of the Chinese students thank the Taiwanese for their hospitality and said they would tell their families and friends what a good time they had, he added.
“This is the good that cross-strait visits can bring,” he said.
Meanwhile, MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said that the government would convene an interdepartmental meeting to determine whether the Regulations on Permission for Entrance of People of the Mainland Area Into the Taiwan Area (大陸地區人民進入臺灣地區許可辦法) had been contravened.
The foundation could face a five-year ban from inviting Chinese students to the country if it is determined that it breached the regulations, Liang said.
A student from China’s Fudan University on Sunday said that the tour group “would like to congratulate the China, Taipei team on their win” last month in the Premier12 baseball championship match.
On Wednesday, Chinese spouses waved Chinese flags in front of protesters when the group visited National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu City.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) said that the MAC should not have let the Chinese students enter Taiwan if it thinks they were here to engage in “united front” work.
“If they are allowed to enter, the council should not keep regulating what they have to say,” Wang said.
Liang said that the MAC has never criticized the student who referred to Taiwan as “China, Taipei,” and knew that the students in the delegation were Chinese Communist Youth Corp members.
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