The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday demonstrated in front of the Presidential Office Building to protest President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), accusing him of breaking away from the institutionalized cross-strait negotiation system, while vowing to launch a recall campaign.
Joined by dozens of taxis, protesters held placards condemning Ma for his decision to meet with Xi in Singapore tomorrow and calling on Ma to resign.
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said Ma’s rushed decision to meet with Xi has breached the institutionalized mechanism on cross-strait exchanges.
Photo: Edward Lau, Reuters
“When the historical cross-strait negotiations between the Taiwan’s then-Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) and China’s then-Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits chairman Wang Daohan (汪道涵) took place in Singapore in 1993, I was Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) minister and Ma was my deputy,” Huang told the crowd. “The preparations for the meeting took a long time, with one preparatory meeting after another, while what to talk about and what would be the main objectives were clearly set.”
Huang said that the meeting only happened after both sides approved the issues to be discussed.
Transparency was the key to institutionalized negotiations, but this time no one knows what issues are to be discussed during the Ma-Xi meeting and the decision was a rushed one, Huang said.
“Ma said that he wanted to institutionalize cross-strait summits at the top level, but instead what he is doing now is breaking the institutionalized mechanism for cross-strait talks,” Huang said.
TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) said the TSU caucus would immediately launch a campaign to recall the president.
“The law stipulates that a presidential recall proposal has to be endorsed by one-quarter of the legislature. At the moment, three TSU lawmakers have signed the endorsement and we will try to reach the threshold of 29 as soon as possible,” Lin said.
TSU Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) said that when the legislature reviewed MAC’s budget proposals for the next fiscal year, MAC Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) said nothing about Ma’s planned meeting with Xi.
“We put forward a motion to restart the review of MAC budgets,” she said.
At 10am, when a press conference started inside the Presidential Office Building, the dozens of taxis at the demonstration blew their horns in unison in protest.
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