Senior DPP member quits on controversy over China visit

Fan announced his departure from the DPP before the party leadership meted out further party discipline on him and Hsu Jung-shu -- another senior DPP member and former party legislator -- for their attendance at the forum that took place July 11-12 in Changsha, Hunan Province.

On July 23, the DPP Central Review Committee suspended Fan and Hsu of their party member rights for three years to discipline them for participating in the forum despite having been given prior warning by the DPP's Central Executive Committee that they would face punishment if they attended.

Some DPP members, however, considered the three-year suspension as too lenient for the two and demanded harsher punishment, such as expulsion from the party, as suggested by the DPP Central Standing Committee last week.

Fan, a former chairman of the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture under the previous DPP administration, said Monday that he chose to leave before the party had the chance to expel him.

Fan, who is now an advisor to President Ma Ying-jeou, called for the DPP leadership to spare Hsu, but asked the Central Review Committee to retain its previous decision to have Hsu's party member rights suspended for three years.

He suggested that the DPP leadership should move fast to debate the party's China policy, sort out its new China policy, replace its anachronistic mentality and stop regarding exchanges of visits across the Taiwan Strait as offenses against the party.

He also criticized the DPP for adopting a double standard on the China visit issue by "not handling" the case of Su Tsung-hsiang, a former chief of the DPP's Hualien Chapter, who also went to China to attend the forum.

The Committee had resolved July 8 to prohibit incumbent and former DPP officials from taking part in the KMT-CPC forum and to urge other DPP members to refrain from attending the gathering.

The party did not give an explanation as to why it was against its members attending the forum, but it is traditionally anti-China and favors independence for Taiwan.

The opposition party has repeatedly criticized the ruling Kuomintang's (KMT's) past year of negotiations and engagement with China as lacking transparency and formal approval from the Taiwanese people. DPP leaders have also voiced fears about a potential loss of Taiwan's sovereignty and independence if the KMT and the government are allowed to continue the current course of building closer economic and other ties with China.

Speaking at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport prior to his departure for China July 10, Fan said that many people in Taiwan have criticized the ruling KMT for having "sold Taiwan out" by increasing engagements with Beijing.

"I want to take a look there (China) to find out whether the KMT has indeed sold out Taiwan, " Fan said on that occasion, adding that "Taiwan will not be annexed by China simply because Hsu and I attended a forum."

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