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WIKILEAKS: Dalai
Lama’s visit worried Ma: cable
COLD SHOULDER: US cables quoted Vice President
Vincent Siew as saying that the Dalai Lama’s trip could delay cross-strait
negotiations for a trade agreement
By Mo Yan-chih / Staff Reporter
Tibetan spiritual leader the
Dalai Lama, center, visits the typhoon-hit Siaolin Village in what is now
Greater Kaoshiung on Aug. 31, 2009.
Photo: CNA
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九)
administration was concerned about the impact of a visit by the Dalai Lama in
2009 on its plans to begin negotiations with China on the Economic Cooperation
Framework Agreement (ECFA) later the same year, a US cable released by WikiLeaks
showed.
The Dalai Lama visited the country in August 2009 at the invitation of seven
cities and counties in southern Taiwan to minister to victims of Typhoon Morakot,
which had devastated parts of the south earlier that month.
Local government heads played down the political implications of his visit and
the Dalai Lama did not meet Ma during his visit.
In a cable dated Sept. 2, 2009, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) told American
Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director William Stanton during a meeting at Siew’s
office that the administration was uncertain “if the Dalai Lama visit will delay
the process [of cross-strait negotiations on the ECFA] or not.”
The Ma administration, seeking to facilitate bilateral trade talks with China
and other economic partners, was worried that the Dalai Lama’s visit would
affect the negotiations’ timetable, Stanton commented on Siew’s stance after the
meeting.
In another cable dated Sept. 3, 2009, then-director of the Chinese Nationalist
Party’s (KMT) Mainland Affairs Committee Chang Jung-kun (張榮恭) told Stanton at a
meeting that the Dalai Lama’s trip could “damage” Beijing’s confidence in Ma.
Chang also said that to avoid confrontations with Beijing, the government
persuaded the Dalai Lama to cancel a scheduled news briefing on Aug. 31 after he
arrived in Taiwan, adding that then-KMT spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) even
traveled to China to explain the move.
Chang’s comments revealed the reason behind the cancelation of the media
conference originally scheduled in Kaohsiung.
At that time, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) denied that she called off the news
conference, and said Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) had suggested that
the news conference should be canceled to avoid politicizing the visit.
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