China yesterday put two Taiwanese non-profit organizations and several companies on a “secessionist” blacklist as US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a historic visit to Taiwan.
Pelosi landed in Taipei on Tuesday evening, despite a series of increasingly stark threats from Beijing.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) told a news conference yesterday that punitive measures would be initiated against the Taiwan Democracy Foundation (TDF), the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF) and “diehard Taiwan secessionists.”
Taipei Times file photo
The TDF and the ICDF are affiliated with Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ma said the funds and their alleged donors — including Speedtech Energy, Hyweb Technology, Skyla Corp and Skyeyes GPS Technology — would be banned from engaging in any transaction or cooperating with organizations, enterprises or people in China.
The TDF and the ICDF are engaged in “secessioninst [sic] activities” around the world under the “guise of democracy and development” in a bid to expand Taiwan’s “so-called international space,” he was paraphrased by China’s state-owned Global Times as saying.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) deputy-secretary general Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), who also chairs the TDF, said Beijing has no say in the fund’s operations and its hasty comments are proof of its desperation.
“The TDF will not yield to China,” he said. “The public is called upon to support the foundation to show that bullying will never be accepted.”
The TDF and the ICDF are organizations that serve as conduits for Taiwan to conduct diplomacy and promote international cooperation, and Ma’s comments about the funds are not based on logic or facts, DPP Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) said.
“Beijing’s bullying would achieve nothing except arouse the antipathy of Taiwanese toward China,” he said. “We urge the communist regime in China to stop before it falls into an abyss.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Lin Chia-hsing (林家興) said the punitive measures would not promote the welfare of people on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and Chinese authorities should stop inappropriate policies that harm the relationship between Taiwan and China.
The TDF and the ICDF are bipartisan entities that represent the government and not a single party or faction, he said, adding that half of the TDF’s board were appointed by political parties, including the KMT.
“They cannot be said to be an association composed of die-hard Taiwanese secessionists and do not deserve punitive measures,” Lin added.
Meanwhile, a Skyla spokesman said the company has ever never donated to the ICDF.
While an investigation found that a former employee had made a NT$3,000 contribution to the fund’s medical charity in 2018, the check was issued from the former employee’s personal account and Skyla was not involved in any way, the spokesman said.
Speedtech Energy director Chu Yen-ting (巨彥霆) said he was prompted to contribute “a sum too petty to note” to the ICDF by a friend four or five years ago, adding that he is “pissed off” about being labeled a secessionist in Beijing.
“My company does no business in China. If China wants to call me a die-hard pro-Taiwanese independence, then I will be one,” he said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yun, Fang Wei-chieh, Hsieh Wu-hsiung and Lin Liang-sheng
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
RSS