DPP against opening BOT projects to China investors

The draft amendments, raised by the Cabinet-level Public Construction Commission (PCC), were up for screening by the transportation committee of the Legislative Yuan.

But DPP lawmakers Kuo Wen-cheng, Yeh Yi-chin and Lin Su-feng occupied the podium, preventing Frank L.S. Fan, minister of the PCC, from reporting the draft amendments at the committee.

Opposition lawmakers lashed out at the PCC for trying to allow Chinese investors to bid for 11 BOT projects including airports, harbors, and tourism establishments. "This is tantamount to allowing Chinese investors to control the grand door of Taiwan, greatly undermining the national security," Lawmaker Kuo Wen-cheng said.

DPP lawmakers said revising the laws to facilitate Chinese investment in 12 i-Taiwan (love Taiwan) construction projects raised by President Ma Ying-jeou during his presidential election campaigns is virtually "selling Taiwan to China", making Ma a "traitor."

In response to the DPP accusation, Fan defended that the PCC has never engaged in "selling Taiwan" to China, saying that opening 11 kinds of infrastructure projects to mainland Chinese investors was not a unilateral decision made by the PCC, and instead was based on conclusions reached following several rounds of inter-ministerial meetings organized by the Council for Economic Planning and Development.

But DPP lawmakers stressed that the Legislative Yuan recently hosted a spate of public hearing sessions, but the Executive Yuan has failed to revise the statute based on the conclusions reached at the hearing sessions.

They urged Fan to take back the draft amendments and further "revise" the amendments, and claimed that they would continue to boycott the screening of the revised statute governing private investment in public infrastructures, until the draft amendments are "revised further."

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