PM blasts Taiwan for attempt to reopen representative office in Cambodia

chinaview.cn
2008-03-13 2

PHNOM PENH, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen here on Thursday reiterated his government's rejection to the Taiwan authority's attempt to reopen its representative office in the kingdom.

"Don't dream to reopen Taiwan's representative office in Cambodia while I am in power," he told a conference of the Interior Ministry.

Middle men said that the Cambodian women currently living in Taiwan can get their stay legalized, if the Cambodian government allows the Taiwan authority to reopen its representative office in the kingdom, said Hun Sen.

"If I sign (the documents) to reopen Taiwan's representative office, I will get millions of dollars into my pocket from the middle men," he said, adding "we can't sign to reopen this, (because) we have to respect the territorial sovereignty of the People's Republic of China and it is part of the foreign policy of our government."

"We can't allow any province to separate and become independent from Cambodia," he said.
"We can do business with Taiwan but we don't allow it to reopen its representative office here. Even their planes landing here can't use their (so-called national) flag," he said.

Currently, he said, over half of the 2,500 Cambodian women living in Taiwan don't possess legal identity or official approval, after they were cheated to go there to find work and marry Taiwanese.

And some of them were even sold to brothels to work as prostitutes, he said.

"We will work with NGOs and civil societies to help them," he added.

The Taiwan authority's representative office in Cambodia was closed in 1975, but business exchange has kept on going ever since.

Businesspeople established the Taiwan Commercial Association in Cambodia in 1996 as a civilian organization, which now has more than a hundred members.　

Editor: Pliny Han