A coalition of pro-independence groups yesterday expressed outrage over Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) visit to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office and liaison office in Hong Kong.
“China’s liaison office is a place where every chief executive of Hong Kong must report to after their election and Han’s visit was apparently meant to show support for China’s ‘one country, two systems’ proposal,” Asia University student Hsieh Hai-ching (謝海菁) said at a protest outside the Legislative Yuan in Tapei.
By offering to serve as a promoter for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Han is probably hoping to become president with the party’s help, she said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“Young people are very worried that Han might be elected president, because that could cause Taiwan to suffer the same fate as Hong Kong and undergo a series of sovereignty crises,” she said.
Han and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) must not “sell out” Taiwan, she added.
The protest, organized by the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan and more than a dozen student groups, drew about 30 people to Jinan Road, many of them holding placards that read “Say no to ‘one country, two systems’” and “China would give neither bread nor freedom.”
“With Chinese President Xi Jingping (習近平) clearly set on promoting ‘the great revival of the Chinese people,’ I find it anachronistic and unbelievable that certain people in Taiwan are backing the ‘1992 consensus’ and ‘one country, two systems,’ or proposing a peace treaty,” Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) said.
He urged Han to explain when he returns home today what he had negotiated with the CCP while in China and called for the government to boost national security against Chinese infiltration.
Han last week led a 28-member delegation on a visit to Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen and Xiamen to promote trade.
While in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, he met with Chinese Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Director Wang Zhimin (王志民) and Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一) respectively.
Han is scheduled to return to Kaohsiung this morning.
The so-called “1992 consensus” — a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the CCP that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
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