By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday expressed concern over the human rights record of visiting Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong (郭金龍), as the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) also protested China’s illegal seizure of the assets of a Taiwanese businessman.
The Beijing mayor and a 500-member delegation arrived in Taipei yesterday for a six-day visit focusing on cultural events.
Guo has an “awful human rights record,” DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said, and is notorious for his oppression of Falun Gong practitioners.
He urged the government to carefully review their invitations to Chinese officials.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) performance in respect to human rights has been disappointing because he has welcomed Beijing officials with poor human rights records, but denied entry to human rights champion and World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer, and had also criticized the visit of the Dalai Lama, Pan said.
A resolution was passed in the Legislative Yuan demanding that the administration deny entry to Chinese officials with poor human rights records, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said.
“However, government agencies have been turning a blind eye to the resolution and went on to grant entry permission to Chinese human rights violators,” she said.
The DPP also cautioned the government over the two-week visit of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Deputy Chairman Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中) over his “united front -tactic disguised as a cultural and trade exchange.”
During his visit to southern Taiwan, Zheng was quoted as saying that China has decided to extend purchasing orders of farm produce for another year in the region, “regardless of how voting results in the presidential election come out,” Pan said.
Zheng’s remark could be construed as bribery, he said.
Meanwhile, the TSU protested to the Beijing City Government over its illegal seizure of assets from Taiwanese businessman Tsai Kao-teh (蔡高德) at a press conference yesterday.
Tsai, who began his investment in China after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, said the city government had embezzled property and assets worth at least US$10 million from him.