The Taiwan Solidarity Union’s (TSU) legislative caucus yesterday said that the cross-strait service trade agreement should not be reviewed until the case in which former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) is accused of leaking state secrets is closed.
Chang is accused of having spied for China during his time at the council and as vice chairman and secretary-general of the Straits Exchange Foundation, Taiwan’s semi-official negotiating body with China.
The Cabinet on Aug. 16 announced Chang’s resignation and initially said he left for “family reasons,” but later cited national security concerns.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The Mainland Affairs Council later referred the matter to the Investigation Bureau, which is investigating the allegations against Chang, which it said could constitute treason.
Chang has maintained his innocence and has accused some in the government of fabricating accusations against him.
TSU caucus whip Lai Chen-chang (賴振昌) told a press conference yesterday that the council has so far failed to clarify the matter involving Chang and the accusations being traded by multiple “anonymous sources,” but has instead turned it into “a national security crisis” that started with the council’s “sneaky attempt to cover up [Chang’s ouster] by fabricating the excuse of him leaving for ‘family reasons.’”
“The Mainland Affairs Council, at this point, should not shun its responsibility to spell out all the cross-strait negotiations in which Chang has participated,” Lai said.
TSU Policy Committee Chairman Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) listed three major allegations that have been laid against Chang: “Influence peddling for Taiwanese businesspeople, divulging negotiation bottom lines and exercising power beyond the domain in which he had been authorized to act.”
“The latter two are extremely serious stuff,” he said, adding that Chang in his two-and-half-year stint as Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister had handled the signing of the Cross-Strait Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement and the cross-strait service trade agreement.
“However, the MAC has been downplaying the possible repercussions, with MAC Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) claiming lightly that cross-strait negotiations would not be affected and Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) calling bottom lines ‘layered’ and asserting that Chang therefore might not have leaked the most confidential parts,” Hsu said.
Hsu said that what the nation’s representatives do during negotiations with foreign countries all involve national interests, “and once the bottom lines are disclosed, the agreement thereafter struck would not be in line with national interests.”
“If Chang did overreach his authority during the negotiations, the result of those negotiations, including the service trade pact, should be considered ineffective based on the legal notion of ultra vires,” Hsu added.
“Not only should the agreements not be handed over to the Executive Yuan for review, the Executive Yuan should not have referred them to the Legislative Yuan for deliberation either,” he said.
The TSU therefore “strongly demands” that all the reviews concerning the service trade pact, including the draft of cross-strait agreement oversight mechanism, be mothballed, at least until there has been a judgement made on Chang’s case, TSU Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) said, calling on the government to also suspend all ongoing negotiations until the negotiation team has been reorganized.
Additional reporting by CNA
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS