Legislator Chen Chi-mai's statement that Premier Jiang Yi-huah had described the student protest centered on the Cross-Strait Agreement on Trade in Services as a "coup d'etat" is a "one-sided distortion," Executive Yuan Spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun stated today.
Chen made these remarks yesterday (April 18) during an interpellation of Jiang at the Legislative Yuan.
"While answering a question from Legislator Chiau Wen-yan, Premier Jiang clearly stated that if the mass invasion of the Executive Yuan on the night of March 23 had not been successfully resisted, the nation's top administrative hub would have been paralyzed, and all its sensitive documents and data could have leaked," Sun explained.
"Such a state of affairs would have been unimaginable. Not only would the public have fallen into panic; international society could have also wrongly supposed that a violent uprising or coup d'etat had taken place in Taiwan. Hence, that night it was decided that the Executive Yuan could not be occupied.
"At that time, the premier also solemnly stated that this decision was painful but necessary," Sun said. "He did not imagine that Legislator Chen would take his words out of context and distort his intent, accusing him again and again of saying that the protest was a coup d'etat. Statements such as this are regrettable."