Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members and aides of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are accused of making baseless claims and spreading disinformation in support of Ko’s proposal for a bridge from Kinmen County to China’s Xiamen (廈門), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
KMT members and Ko’s aides did not check their facts, DPP spokeswoman Hsieh Pei-fen (謝佩芬) said yesterday.
They are trying to deceive the public by saying that “President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) supported a Kinmen-Xiamen bridge as part of their election platform,” she said.
Photo: CNA
“This is completely false,” Hsieh added.
The suggestion to build a bridge was made by DPP members from Kinmen who attended the party congress in 2015, Hsieh said, adding that the idea was not endorsed by Tsai or Chen.
Separately yesterday, the MAC in a news release also denied claims by Ko, members of his Taiwan People’s Party and KMT legislators that Tsai endorsed a bridge when she was MAC minister from 2000 to 2004 by promoting the “three mini links” proposal.
“The Kinmen-Xiamen bridge proposal will result in tremendous danger for our national security. It is completely different from and had nothing to do with ‘three mini links,’” the council said.
“Our government planned ‘three mini links’ to better manage the illegal small-scale trading between residents of Kinmen, Lienchiang County and China’s Fujian Province — to codify it into law — and as a pilot project for ‘direct air flights’ between Taiwan, Hong Kong and China,” it said.
By contrast, the bridge proposal is based on unilateral consideration for Beijing’s interests and its “united front” tactics, it said, adding that it would obscure the border between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and make Kinmen part of China’s Fujian.
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