The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty.
The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television.
The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.”
Photo: Taipei Times file photo
The post followed remarks by Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) on Friday that Taiwan has never been a country, “not in the past and never in the future,” adding that the only reference to Taiwan in the UN was as a “province of China.”
The MAC said that Taiwan is an independent, sovereign nation that has never been part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
“To protect their careers in China, some Taiwanese entertainers have echoed statements made by PRC officials to denigrate the nation’s sovereignty, seriously hurting the feelings of Taiwanese,” it said.
Photo: Screen grab from Patty Hou’s Sina Weibo account
“Taiwanese entertainers should not harm the land that cultivated them, allowing them to pursue careers in China,” it said. “We strictly condemn those who voluntarily act as a pawn as part of China’s united front work intended to destroy Taiwan.”
The MAC said would review the entertainers actions to determine if they contravened Article 33-1 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), which prohibits “any cooperative activity of a political nature with any individual, juristic person, organization, or other institution of the Mainland Area.”
The council said that China seeks to control the entertainment business to censor artists or mobilize them to make political statements on behalf of the PRC.
The practice demonstrates the fundamental differences in the systems of governance across the Taiwan Strait, it said.
A government source familiar with cross-strait affairs, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, yesterday said that it was not the first time Taiwanese entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements, such as celebrating the PRC’s national day or stating that the two sides of the Strait are part of one family, a typical “united front” tactic.
However, the entertainers crossed a line and seriously affected the nation’s security and interests by agreeing with and amplifying Wang’s statement that the Republic of China is not a country and that cross-strait issues are China’s internal affairs — a Beijing tactic intended to deny Taiwan participation in international organizations and to prevent countries from intervening in a potential attack against Taiwan, they said.
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