Zheng Li-wen Visits China; Cho Jung-tai: Contact with CCP Requires High-Intensity Supervision

Zheng Li-wen accepted an invitation from Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and led a delegation to visit China from the 7th to the 12th. The outside world questioned whether the KMT caucus only requested to postpone the negotiation of the "Special Act for Strengthening Defense Resilience and Asymmetric Combat Capability Procurement Plan" draft from the 9th to the 15th or 16th due to the "Zheng-Xi meeting."

The Legislative Yuan continued its general interpellation session this morning. DPP Legislator Shen Bo-yang stated that civil servants must go through a joint review committee of the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of the Interior to visit China, but party chairpersons have always been outside the legal framework, going and returning as they please. How can one know what they discussed, and how does the MAC control it?

MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng responded that there has been much discussion in the past about whether to regulate visits to China by party agents and those with genuine political influence. The Executive Yuan's draft amendment to the "Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area" for the first time included legislators in "specific personnel" requiring review, and also mandated public disclosure for all elected public officials visiting China to interact with party, government, and military officials. This was unprecedented.

Chiu Chui-cheng stated that the MAC originally intended to amend the law in the direction proposed by Shen Bo-yang and once wanted to do so, but considering the many political parties in Taiwan and the complexity of defining politically influential figures and party agents, they decided to propose it again next time. "We strongly support the legislator's idea."

Shen Bo-yang suggested that political parties with a certain number of seats in the National Assembly, and chairpersons and vice-chairpersons with significant political influence, should have a joint review mechanism, just like military and police personnel and important civil servants.

Chiu Chui-cheng stated that in the Anti-Infiltration Act, it has been difficult to provide evidence for instructions, commissions, or funding from hostile external forces or infiltration sources, making infiltration acts difficult to establish. The MAC is working with judges and prosecutors to research how to strengthen evidence collection for the Anti-Infiltration Act to make it more practical and provide concrete evidence more quickly.

Cho Jung-tai stated that past attempts to amend the law, limited to legislators, faced considerable obstacles. This was a preventive amendment. If any illegal acts clearly occur this time, the government will not just implement preventive amendments but will adopt a "post-disaster reconstruction" approach to rebuild a complete set of strong legal norms to ensure national security. (Editor: Wan Shu-chang) 1150407