A colleague of mine was very angry after hearing that the families of several Chinese women who had drowned in the Taiwan Strait while trying to be smuggled into Taiwan had asked for compensation from our government. After discussing the issue with my colleague, I believe there are some ideas about right and wrong that I should present as reference for the public, especially media workers and politicians.
First, do illegal immigrants have human rights? As human beings, they should, of course, enjoy human rights. But they are also criminals, and alien criminals to boot.
Our government should shoulder responsibility for humanitarian aid in the face of disaster. The human rights of criminals abide in the question of whether they are treated reasonably and legally during the process of arrest, interrogation and trial. Let's suppose a criminal tries to escape a police pursuit by speeding away in a car, and dies in a crash. The criminal's family won't be able to have the police take responsibility for compensation.
The line between humanitarianism and law should be very clear. Law enforcement personnel should not shoulder irrelevant responsibility for enforcing the law. The traditional habit of emphasizing compatibility with "emotions, reason and the law" is a major impingement on the rule of law. Interference with the law by the instigation of emotions should be condemned.
Some people compared the event to the Qiandao Lake incident [24 Taiwanese tourists and eight Chinese boat crew and guides were robbed and murdered while on a cruise of Qiandao Lake, Zhejiang Province, in March 1994] and believed that we should use China's attitude and handling of that incident to defend our government's position.
This comparison is wrong. The victims at Qiandao Lake were tourists, not illegal immigrants. Such a comparison is very disrespectful to the Qiandao victims, as well as incompatible with legal reasoning.
What is right and what is wrong in this issue have become confused primarily because of the relations between the two sides of the Strait. Both the media and political forces want to use the issue to achieve their own goals. The charge of rights-violation is merely another excuse for attacking the government.
The opposition forces will not let go of an opportunity to make the ruling party look bad. But they should not forget the importance of national sovereignty and dig-nity. If some illegal Taiwanese immigrants were to drown while trying to reach the US, would the US media and politicians sympathize with them and demand compensation from Washington? Of course not. They would condemn those who violate the law and their accomplices.
A simple incident has become complicated because of the fight between the two sides of the Strait. The domestic political wrangling triggered by the cross-strait struggle has also confused the simple legal questions. I hope that people will be able to distinguish between human rights, law and politics. I also hope they can put the country's interests first.
The Americans are able to dominate the world because they put national interests ahead of personal and partisan interests.
That some people inside Taiwan use external forces to bully their political adversaries is a serious accusation to make. I do not wish to make such an association, but in fact we have heard too often that our people give primary consideration to the China's position on every issue, forgetting our national interests. We can view China's position and response as one of our many considerations, but not as the supreme guiding principle for all our policies and actions.
Ji Shun-jie is an assistant professor at Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of Future Studies.
Translated by Francis Huang
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