The impending wedding of Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of former Chinese politburo member Bo Xilai (薄熙來), and his Taiwanese fiancee attests that Taiwan is a country with freedom and a democratic society, politicians said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) confirmed that it approved Bo Guagua’s application for entry to Taiwan, adding that while the authorities are monitoring the situation due to his special status, it would not divulge many details out of respect for the privacy of the couple and their families.
“The marriage of the son of a former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) high official, with him becoming a son-in-law of a Taiwanese family, is a testament to Taiwan’s democratic society, which respects freedom and human rights,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) said yesterday.
Photo courtesy of a reader
“We give our blessing for this marriage,” Straits Exchange Foundation Secretary-General Luo Wen-chia (羅文嘉) said on Friday.
“We wish that any couple in love can find happiness, whether they are living in a free country or in an authoritarian regime, irrespective of their religion and gender,” Luo said.
Local media reported the wedding of Bo Guagua and Hsu Hui-yu (許惠瑜) would take place this weekend.
The couple met while studying in the US and reside in Canada, they added.
Hsu is from an influential family in Yilan County, whose grandfather Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政) founded Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital and led the local faction of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Much of the media attention is focused on the prominent political figures in the couple’s families.
Hsu Wen-cheng served two terms as speaker of the Yilan County Council starting in 1973, was a Control Yuan member in 1981 and an Executive Yuan advisor starting in 1989.
He later served as a presidential adviser in 1999 and was later appointed as senior presidential adviser in 2009, during the first term of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT.
His elder brother, Lo Wen-tang (羅文堂), served two terms as member of the National Assembly, while Lo’s son, Lo Kuo-hsiung (羅國雄), won elections to serve as Yilan County speaker from 1986 to 1993.
These figures led the KMT’s so-called “Lo-Hsu Faction” (羅許派) in Yilan, political commentator Fan Shih-ping (范世平) said.
Local media reported that several senior KMT figures have been invited to the wedding, but it could not be confirmed.
It is worth watching if Ma and other KMT stalwarts attend, since Beijing appears to have shut down media reports of Bo Guagua in recent days, Fan said.
Bo Xilai, known as the only serious challenger to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a reported power struggle in the early 2010s, is serving a life sentence in a prison in Beijing after being convicted of corruption and embezzlement in 2013.
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