The DPP and Chinese Dissidents

The Levitator has a very interesting post on relations between the DPP and Chinese dissidents in China, full of information. He writes:

If you haven't read my earlier post, here's some background on this case. Zhang is a member of the China Pan-Blue Alliance, a mainland Chinese dissident group which looks to Taiwan’s opposition KMT for inspiration. The group allegedly tried to field its own candidates in China’s local People’s Congress elections. He was arrested after waving ROC (Taiwan) flags and KMT party flags at a gathering commemorating the Tiananmen massacre.

On June 26, Taiwan's pro-independence Liberty Times ran an article by Huang calling on KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou to push for Zhang’s release. On the same day, the DPP's Lai held a press conference in Taipei to condemn the arrest.

Neither Ma nor any other KMT official responded to his call publicly.

Pretty Good Result

Zhang was released after a little more than two weeks in detention. It was a pretty good outcome, given that it is very common for Chinese dissidents to be held without charge for months at a time--almost five months in the case of Wu Hao, even with intense publicity on the Internet and the print media.

In the interview, Huang thanked the DPP for helping to publicize Zhang’s arrest. Huang also had some strong words for Ma: “He didn’t take any action. Maybe he viewed his relations with Beijing as first and foremost.”

Actually, Ma did condemn the Chinese authorities for the arrest when he was speaking to reporters in Japan on July 13, the same day Zhang was released. Just in time, phew.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [China] [KMT]