Taiwan’s top body in charge of national exams and civil service affairs says a recent delegation to China did not have contact with officials from communist party institutes.
The Taiwanese organization is the Examination Yuan, one of the five branches of the central government. The trip in question involved a visit last month to Chinese civil service institutes in Shanghai, as well as Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.
An Examination Yuan official, Samson Lee, said Monday that it was a misunderstanding.
“The Chinese Communist Party institutes and civil service institutes use the same training centers," said Lee. "We met with the civil service institutes, not the communist party institutes. They are in the same place but have two different systems. The purpose of the trip was to conduct exchanges with civil service institutes, not the Chinese communist party institutes.”
Lee said that the Taiwan delegation knew before the trip that the institutes used the same facilities.