The government yesterday said it is to strictly scrutinize Chinese who apply to visit Taiwan for religious reasons, after three Taiwanese members of Yiguandao were arrested in China for allegedly using the organization to disrupt the rule of law.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government for using the case involving the three members to “manipulate politics” and “impede cross-strait exchanges without legitimate reason.”
It also asked why the DPP government has yet to lift the ban on group tours to China, why it has yet to respond to a request to resume charter ferry services connecting Taiwan and Pingtan in China, and why it maintains an “orange” alert for travel in China.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
It said that the purpose of “united front” work is to make friends and facilitate exchange.
“Yiguandao is named after a term in Confucius’ (孔子) Analects (論語). It is probably the only religion in Taiwan that actually has members reading Confucius’ teachings, which is part of Chinese culture. If members of this religion were arrested in China for being involved in a cult, what qualification does it have to accuse the Taiwanese government of destroying Chinese culture?” Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told reporters.
China defines a cult as an organization that falsely uses religion and qigong (氣功) — a system of coordinated posture and movement, breathing and meditation — to build mythical tales, produce and spread superstitions and unorthodox teachings to deceive and control members in ways that threaten society, Liang said, adding that no part of the definition applies to Yiguandao.
Religious freedom does not exist in the People’s Republic of China, and so-called “cross-strait religious exchanges” are only a “united front” tactic, Liang said.
“The greatest obstacle to cross-strait religious exchanges is that members of an appropriate religion in Taiwan could be arrested in China,” he said, adding that Beijing should quickly release the three Yiguandao members, all of whom are elderly.
See EDITORIAL on page 8
The council does not agree with the office’s description that the purpose of “united front” work is to make friends, he said.
“It [united front work] was one of three major tactics that former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) used to defeat the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which subsequently retreated to Taiwan. It consisted of attacking the arch enemy by partnering with minor enemies, isolating your opponent and treating your friends well. It might sound like a graceful term for the CCP, but not for Taiwan,” he said.
Responding to the Taiwan Affairs Office’s questions, Liang said that the Mainland Affairs Council also has three questions: Why Beijing has yet to completely reopen tourism to Taiwan despite the removal of all COVID-19 pandemic restriction; why Chinese military aircraft and ships continue to harass Taiwan amid all the talk about cross-strait exchange; and why Beijing interrogates and detains Taiwanese upon arrival in China.
“We are checking if the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism would make further announcements about Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan,” Liang said.
Chinese living outside China can currently visit Taiwan.
As of last month, about 134,000 applied for permits to visit Taiwan, of whom 95,000 arrived, MAC data showed.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS