The central government has not yet determined whether Taitung County Commissioner Yao Ching-ling (饒慶鈴) broke the law by participating in China's Straits Forum via a prerecorded video, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
Only after the investigation is completed would anyone know whether she did contravene Article 33-1 of 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), MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said on a radio program.
The MAC has referred the matter to the Ministry of the Interior, the competent authority, for an administrative investigation into Yao's participation in the forum, he said.
Photo: Huang Ming-tang, Taipei Times
The forum’s main conference was held in Xiamen, in China’s Fujian Province, on Saturday last week.
Article 33-1 of the act stipulates that no individual or organization in Taiwan can engage in any form of cooperation with agencies in China involved in "political work against Taiwan" or activities "affecting national security or interests."
The MAC previously characterized the forum as a "Chinese Communist Party united front platform" targeting Taiwan, and barred central and local government officials from attending the annual event. The move expanded on a previous ban that had applied only to central government personnel.
As a result, Yao's application to attend the forum in person was rejected early last month.
Yao, of the Chinese nationalist Party (KMT), was reported to have delivered prerecorded remarks at a signing ceremony held on Saturday last week as part of the forum.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported that Yao offered her congratulations in the video and said that the ceremony, at which Chinese companies agreed to purchase Taiwanese agricultural and fishery products, was "a major encouragement" to Taiwan's farmers and fishers.
Yao on Wednesday said that she had a clear conscience about her actions and that recording the video was "the right thing to do."
Also on Wednesday, the central government's investigation drew criticism from KMT lawmaker Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), who said that President William Lai (賴清德) visited China for exchanges while serving as Tainan mayor from 2010 to 2017.
At a legislative session, Wang questioned the government's standards for deciding which cross-strait platforms Taiwanese officials can and cannot attend.
In response, Chiu said that Lai would not have participated in exchanges through a “united front” platform.
The Straits Forum is a platform for propaganda intended to infiltrate, divide and undermine Taiwan, Chiu said.
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