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CLAIM THAT PRESIDENT BLEW COVER OF SPIES IN MAINLAND UNTRUE: VP LU

2003-12-24 22:14:56

    Taipei, Dec. 24 (CNA) Vice President Annette Lu said Wednesday that President Chen Shui-bian's remark on the number of ballistic missiles in mainland China targeting Taiwan had not tipped off the mainland to the whereabouts of Taiwan spies; rather, it was a successful stroke of " defensive diplomacy."

    Lu made the remarks while visiting a hospital in northern Taiwan. The vice president said the president's comments, made on Nov. 30 in an interview with the London-based Financial Times newspaper, has drawn worldwide attention to Beijing's military threat against Taiwan, and prompted the European Parliament to forbid its member states from selling arms to Beijing.

    The president has achieved a diplomatic breakthrough by changing the EU's view of mainland China, a feat which is almost impossible through regular diplomatic channels because of the absence of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and European states, Lu said.

    Beijing's military threat will become more serious because the number of its missiles targeting Taiwan will increase to 650 next year, Lu added.

    President Chen's critics had argued that the disclosure of the number of Beijing's missiles jeopardized the country's intelligence gathering operations in the mainland by alerting Beijing to what Taiwan had learned about the missile deployment.

    Their accusations were boosted by a report in Monday's Ming Pao Daily in Hong Kong that said Beijing has arrested 36 people for allegedly spying for Taiwan in the mainland as a response to Chen's remarks.

    However, government officials as well as Chen's supporters have spoken out against the accusations, dismissing them as groundless or as a political trick concocted by Beijing and its sympathizers in Taiwan.

    While inspecting the Taoyuan Hospital, Lu also criticized Beijing for shamelessly claiming earlier this year that it had taken care of Taiwan's medical needs when in fact it had done little to halt the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and had not even bothered to apologize to the people of Taiwan.

(By Maubo Chang)

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