Local media have reported that the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is considering nominating Xu Chunying (徐春鶯), a Chinese immigrant married to a Taiwanese man, as a legislative candidate. The news is drawing a lot of attention and triggering a series of debates.
After marrying in 1993, Xu told the Chinese-language Want Daily that she used to be a member of one of China’s national agencies. She said that the job was of a certain status and provided her with an exclusive car.
In 2011, she established the Taiwan New Residents Development Association, of which she is president. In the past few years, she has spoken on behalf of Chinese married to Taiwanese to protect their rights in China and Taiwan.
CHRISTINE LEE
Xu’s story is relatively similar to that of Christine Lee (李貞駒), who worked as a British Chinese lawyer advocating for the rights of Chinese in the UK.
In 1974, when Lee was 11 years old, she moved from Hong Kong to Northern Ireland with her parents. In 1990, she opened a law firm in north London.
In 2006, she founded the British Chinese Project to increase the community’s political participation in British society. She said that the project represented the Chinese-British community with the aim of promoting diversity in the UK.
Because of her activities, Lee was recruited as the chief legal adviser to the Chinese embassy in London. Before long, she was also hired as a legal adviser to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which is the external name of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work Department (UFWD).
In other words, Lee was a member of the UFWD.
In 2019, Lee was invited to participate in China’s national day celebrations in Beijing, where she appeared in a China Central Television news report. When a group photograph was taken, it was arranged for Lee to stand in the first row. She also shook hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
SECURITY ALERT
Early last year, the British Security Service (MI5) told the British Parliament that Lee should be considered a CCP representative and an influential agent.
Lee’s activities had “been undertaken in covert coordination with the UFWD, with funding provided by foreign nationals located in China and Hong Kong,” MI5 said in an alert to British lawmakers.
On July 6 last year, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said in a speech that the UFWD had been “mounting patient, well-funded, deceptive campaigns to buy and exert influence,” and through Lee, the UFWD was seeking to amplify pro-CCP voices “and silence those that question the CCP’s legitimacy or authority.”
Whether Xu is another Lee in Taiwan should be investigated thoroughly and carefully by national security agencies. This is a serious issue that needs to be clarified.
Where does Xu get her money for living expenses in Taiwan? Who does she speak to and communicate with in China? What are her political stances? Has she given up her Chinese citizenship and its five insurance benefits and housing funding?
It is already disconcerting to have Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) in the Executive Yuan. It is uncertain whether Xu would behave like Lee, but if she has any political connections with the CCP, it would certainly be a disaster for Taiwan.
Yu Kung is a Taiwanese entrepreneur working in China.
Translated by Emma Liu
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