A Chinese dissident said yesterday that Beijing had picked former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) to be Taiwan’s representative at APEC months before this week’s announcement.
Yuan Hongbing (袁紅冰), former president of Guizhou Teachers’ College Law School, told a press conference held by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) that Lien’s appointment was not news to him because his friends in Beijing had told him about it months ago.
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said he knew Ma wanted former foreign minister Fredrick Chien (錢復) to represent him at the forum, but Beijing asked Ma to pick Lien.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
Huang said Ma was being controlled by Beijing and he had become a Chinese puppet.
On Wednesday Ma appointed Lien as his representative at the APEC Forum in Peru next month.
Yuan said Beijing convened a high-level meeting soon after Ma won the presidential election in May to form its Taiwan strategy.
He said China would offer Taiwan some benefits to show “goodwill” and help Ma win a second term and was prepared to expand political, economic and cultural exchanges.
China would try not to confront Ma before 2012, Yuan said, but during Ma’s second term Beijing would bring highly political issues to the table and attempt to push Taiwan into a unification framework.
“The strategy is to take over Taiwan without the use of military force by 2016,” Yuan said.
Yuan warned the people of Taiwan not to allow themselves to be deceived by Beijing.
Huang said that Yuan was an advocate of the rule of law and freedom in China, who was persecuted following the crackdown on China’s pro-democracy movement in 1989.
In March 1994, he was arrested at Beijing University and “secretly transferred to Guizhou and detained there for about six months.”
Yuan escaped China in 2004 and now lives in Australia, where he is a voice for Chinese democracy, Huang said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday condemned Chinese and Russian authorities for escalating regional tensions, citing Chinese warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line and joint China-Russia military activities breaching South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the past two days. A total of 30 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and Friday, entering Taiwan’s northern and southwestern airspace in coordination with 15 naval vessels and three high-altitude balloons, the MAC said in a statement. The Chinese military also carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” targeting Taiwan on Thursday evening, the MAC said. On
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday confirmed that Chinese students visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation were almost all affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During yesterday’s meeting convened by the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) asked whether the visit was a way to spread China’s so-called “united front” rhetoric, to which MAC Deputy Ministry Shen You-chung (沈有忠) responded with the CCP comment. The MAC noticed that the Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan, including those in sports, education, or religion, have had increasingly impressive backgrounds, demonstrating that the
MILITARY EXERCISES: China is expected to conduct more drills in the region after President William Lai’s office announced he would stopover in Hawaii and Guam China is likely to launch military drills in the coming days near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming trip to the Pacific and scheduled US transit as a pretext, regional security officials said. Lai is to begin a visit to Taipei’s three diplomatic allies in the Pacific on Saturday, and sources told Reuters he was planning stops in Hawaii and the US territory of Guam in a sensitive trip shortly after the US presidential election. Lai’s office has yet to confirm details of what are officially “stop-overs” in the US, but is expected to do so shortly before he departs, sources
Tasa Meng Corp (采盟), which runs Taiwan Duty Free, could be fined up to NT$1 million (US$30,737) after the owner and employees took center stage in a photograph with government officials and the returning Premier12 baseball champions at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Monday evening. When Taiwan’s national baseball team arrived home fresh from their World Baseball Softball Confederation Premier12 championship victory in Tokyo, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) was at the airport with Chinese Professional Baseball League commissioner Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) to welcome back the team. However, after Hsiao and Tsai took a photograph with the team, Tasa Meng chairwoman Ku
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