Tsai Ing-wen (center)
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen blocked her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, from making a landmark visit to Hong Kong this week, citing security concerns.
Ma’s travel request was rejected on grounds that the administration needed more time to ensure the security of the ex-president’s trip and assess what confidential information he had access to, Taiwan’s Office of the President said yesterday. The onetime-Kuomintang leader was due to address the Society of Publishers in Asia’s annual journalism awards gala in Hong Kong on Wednesday, which would’ve made him the most senior Taiwanese figure to visit the former British colony since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949.
The Hong Kong visit by Ma, 65, would’ve capped a career of milestone trips. In November, he shook hands with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Singapore, the first face-to-face encounter between leaders of the former civil war foes in almost 70 years. Tsai took office May 20, after securing control of both the presidency and the legislature for her Democratic Progressive Party in a landslide election in January. Yu-Huay Sun, Argin Chang, Bloomberg
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