The Associated Press reports that blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng will visit Taiwan next year and address the Legislative Yuan.
Chen’s prospective Taiwan visit offers a challenge to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who has built his administration around better relations with China, from which Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.
[…] Chen’s good friend and a prominent rights lawyer in Beijing, Jiang Tianyong, said he welcomed the news that Chen would visit Taiwan next year, saying China has much to learn from the island in terms of lessons in democracy and rule of law.
“We are in general interested in its legal system and democracy of course is something that every Chinese citizen wants. Taiwan may not be exactly the path China will follow in the future but it has areas that we especially could learn from,” Jiang said by phone.
For more on Chen Guangcheng’s activities since leaving China, see ‘Chen Guangcheng’s Next Steps‘ on CDT.
