China has offered discounted flight tickets to Taiwanese based in China as an incentive for them to return to Taiwan and vote “no” in recall elections, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Hong Chien-yi (洪健益) recently obtained an announcement issued by the Chinese “united front” unit in Guangdong Province’s Dongguan offering cheap flight tickets to China-based Taiwanese businesspeople and their family members should they wish to return to Taiwan this week.
MAC Deputy Chairman and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said that the council has entrusted the Straits Exchange Foundation to verify the information, adding that the special offer was probably issued by the Taiwan Business Association in Dongguan.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The offer happened to become available prior to the recall votes tomorrow, Liang said.
In the past, similar offers were available to Taiwanese living in China, usually prior to presidential elections, he said.
The offer this time “shows that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] has taken the recall votes very, very seriously, and the way it mobilized China-based Taiwanese businesspeople was comparable to that for presidential elections,” Liang said.
“We want to remind the CCP that Taiwanese are entitled to decide for themselves whom they want to recall, and it should not interfere with the voting,” he added.
On Wednesday, the council said that China is “clearly” trying to interfere in Taiwan’s democracy and it is up to Taiwanese to decide who should be removed from or stay in office.
Reuters earlier this week reported that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office and Chinese state media have repeatedly commented on the recall votes and used some of the same talking points as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The council in a post on Facebook said it “rejects the CCP’s intervention.”
“The CCP’s attempt to interfere with Taiwan’s democratic operation is evident and clear,” it said. “Recall in Taiwan is a civil right guaranteed by the Constitution, and it is up to the people of Taiwan to decide who should or should not be removed from office.”
Liang yesterday was also asked to respond to comments by Internet personality Holger Chen (陳之漢), who said recently at a forum held by the KMT that China could easily defeat Taiwan, like killing a cockroach.
Taiwan would surrender two minutes after the start of a war with China, he said, adding that he would launch a revolution after the recall votes to make all Taiwanese Chinese.
Liang said he saw Chen make the comments on Chinese state television, which had blurred Chen’s arms to obscure his tattoos.
While some might look at those blurry images as humiliation, Chen seemed to happily accept it and even defended it, citing Chinese media regulations, Liang said.
“There is no Chinese regulation banning the display of tattoos, only an unspoken rule of the CCP propaganda machines,” Liang said.
The New Party and Chinese Unification Promotion Party have attempted for years to change the cultural identity of Taiwanese, but to no avail, Liang said.
Culture has never been an issue between Taiwan and China, Liang said, adding that the problem lies in the differences of political systems and ideologies between the two governments.
“Taiwanese simply dislike the CCP and do not want to be ruled by or be unified with it. Compared with China, Taiwan has done more to preserve Chinese culture. Taiwanese value gentleness, modesty and humility, virtues stated in the Analects of Confucius (論語), while there is more emphasis on struggle and wolf-like competitiveness in China,” Liang said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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