We Should Not Consider the Pro-Reunification Faction and CCP as One and the Same

 We Should Not Consider the Pro-Reunification Faction and CCP as One and the Same

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

January 4, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

Mainland student Zhou Hongxu was convicted [by the court of the first instance] on charges of developing an organization under the "National Security Act," the case has stirred up reverberations. The Taipei District Prosecutors Office, which had been investigating the Zhou case, on January 2^nd made public a new report on concluding the investigation, releasing another part of involvement by Zhou Hongxu. The report touched on the financial assistance by the Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council to Wang Ping-chung’s Fire News. Wang Ping-chung et al. came out, lambasting the prosecutors for wantonly leaking the content of the investigation to the media; thus further eliciting multiplying effects in the media, deepening populist hostility for the Mainland; whether it would once again lead to a populist reaction from the Mainland society worries the public in Taiwan.

The court of law is the last line of defense for social justice and shoulders the heavy responsibility for the stability of the country and society. Zhou Hongxu was indicted additionally this time for developing an organization in Taiwan for the CCP [while the case is on appeal]. If the case involves only whether he personally was a communist spy and whether he received instructions from a CCP unit to develop an organization in Taiwan, it would be rather simple. However, the prosecutorial and investigative agencies, in investigating Zhou Hongxu’s case, expanded the definition of so-called developing an organization in Taiwan, putting many cross-Strait groups for exchanges and exchange modes that have been in practice for years in peril, running the risk of being framed at any time for developing an organization in Taiwan for the CCP.

In order to avoid any chilling effects, creating internally so-called “contradictions between the enemy and us,” even radicalizing cross-Strait tensions, the Taiwan Provincial High Court, the appellate court, should publicly try Zhou Hongxu's case; only the presentation of evidence in court and the cross-examinations between witnesses will enable the public to understand whether members of the New Party Youth Wing were only legally developing pro-reunification groups in Taiwan or developing a CCP organization in Taiwan. Only in this way could we forestall identifying pro-reunification groups with CCP organizations as one and the same.

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