The Beijing government’s Taiwan Affairs Office outlined austerity measures in a statement on Friday. The entry restriction also applies to family members who are considered to be from the hard core of the Taiwan independence forces.
Although no one was named in the statement, agency spokesperson Zhou Feng-lian mentioned Taiwan Prime Minister Su Tsengcheng, Yu Shi-kun, Speaker of the Legislative Council (the Yuan), and Foreign Minister Joseph Fu were among “a few hardliners.” . The spokesman said they had raised tensions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and launched malicious attacks on mainland China.
The spokesman also said relevant parties and their relatives cannot cooperate with companies operating on the Chinese mainland or with Chinese nationals. “They, their relatives and those who give them financial support can no longer benefit from mainland China,” he stressed.
Beijing’s measures were announced on the same day as the end of a three-day visit to Taiwan by the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Intervention in Democratic Processes (INGE). On Friday, delegates said the European Parliament should intensify contacts with Taiwan. But Beijing condemned the visit and warned the European Union that relations between China and the European Union would be damaged if Brussels did not stop sending “wrong messages to dissident forces calling for Taiwan independence”.
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