RESPONDING TO CHINESE BAN ON TAIWAN PARTICIPATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L TAIPEI 003712 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/08/2015 TAGS: KIPR TW IPR SUBJECT: RESPONDING TO CHINESE BAN ON TAIWAN PARTICIPATION IN THE HONG KONG IPR SEMINAR REF: A. HONG KONG 4206 ¶B. HONG KONG 4207 Classified By: AIT Acting Director David Keegan, Reasons 1.4 b/d ¶1. (C) AIT Taipei received word from Taiwan Ministry of Justice on September 6 that the application for a Hong Kong visa for Prosecutor Sun Chih-yuan had been denied by the Hong Kong authorities. The MOJ requested assistance from AIT. Shortly thereafter, we received word from the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) that it had learned from its counterparts at the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) that the other three experts tapped to attend the HK IPR seminar, all of whom already possessed valid Hong Kong visas, would not be allowed to enter Hong Kong. ¶2. (U) AIT Econoff subsequently spoke to AmConGen Hong Kong staff who verified the report that Taiwan experts would not be allowed to enter Hong Kong to attend this event. We informed the Taiwan participants that we were unable to assist them to enter Hong Kong and therefore would have to cancel their plane tickets and hotel reservations. ¶3. (C) On September 7, Prosecutor Chu Ying-shyang called on AIT to express MOJ's concern that Hong Kong's prohibition on Taiwan experts entering the city for the purposes of attending the US Government-sponsored IPR seminar could set a precedent for future Mainland actions to prevent Taiwan from participating in regional activities designed to promote cooperation and information sharing in law enforcement or other areas. We responded that we felt it was very unfortunate that the Hong Kong authorities had chosen to deny entry to the Taiwan IPR experts in spite of the Herculean efforts of Embassy Beijing and AmConGen Hong Kong to ensure they would be able to attend this event. We informed Chu that, although the seminar would still go on with limited participation, it in no way indicated a change in the U.S. posture towards Taiwan participation in appropriate regional activities. We subsequently learned from AmConGen Hong Kong that all of the Chinese participants had withdrawn, including those from Hong Kong. ============================================= ============= Comment: Taiwan Participation Important for U.S. Interests ============================================= ============= ¶4. (C) Intellectual property crimes take place with little respect for borders and the nature of digital and internet-based piracy makes borders even less of a barrier to pirates. As an economy that has recently made great strides in intellectual property protection but is still facing a significant IP protection challenge, Taiwan stands to both contribute to and benefit from participation in this type of regional information and expertise-sharing event. We are extremely appreciative of the efforts of our colleagues in Beijing and Hong Kong to attempt to make the participation of Taiwan experts in this seminar a reality. ¶5. (C) We see increasingly persistent attempts by China to deny participation by Taiwan experts in regional activities that have no bearing on sovereignty issues and threaten significant U.S. policy objectives including our national security. In the past month, Chinese pressure on Vietnam to refuse to invite Taiwan to participate in a co-sponsored APEC meeting on counter-terrorism led to the decision to move the meeting out of Vietnam. Chinese port officials expressed their reluctance to participate in a Container Security Initiative (CSI) workshop in Washington unless Port of Kaohsiung representatives were not invited or invitations were channeled through Beijing. Chinese efforts to block Taiwan participation and effectively sabotage this AmConGen Hong Kong organized IPR seminar are merely the latest in what appears to be a string of increasingly bold efforts to marginalize Taiwan in the region and send a strong message that for China, the importance of blocking Taiwan participation in any international forum, even the participation of experts with no implications for sovereignty, trumps cooperation with the U.S., even on our most important policy goals. ¶6. (C) We believe that it is important that the U.S. response make it clear that while we continue to support the One-China Policy and want to cooperate with China in areas where we have mutual interests, we do not accept Chinese efforts to exclude Taiwan expert participation in regional events that have no implications for sovereignty and are designed to discuss regional problems where Taiwan has a legitimate role to play. KEEGAN