US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI3712

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, Cross Strait Politics, Cross Strait Economics, Foreign Policy 
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that all of the Chinese participants had withdrawn, including 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