At the drop of a word by a pugnacious superintendent, the young protesters were suddenly handcuffed and brusquely forced to the ground by police officers before being dragged away, some screaming in pain, others at the brutality with which their peaceful sit-in had been broken up.
The dozens of activists, many of them veterans of other campaigns in recent months, were in Yuanli Township (苑裡), Miaoli County, to support local residents who oppose a controversial wind turbine construction project that has been forced upon them by an intransigent county government.
Amid the commotion, the superintendent, who earlier had been caught on film saying he “doesn’t understand the law,” warned the protesters they could be charged under articles 304 — causing, by violence or threats, another person to do something they have no obligation to do, or preventing another person from doing something that they have the right to do — and 306 — unlawfully entering a dwelling or structure of another person, the adjacent or surrounding grounds, or a vessel belonging to another — of the Criminal Code. Articles 304 and 306 carry a maximum of three years and one year imprisonment respectively.
Some of the protesters who were arrested were on the site; others, including the leader of the residents’ association, were nearby. By late Monday, an injunction had been issued against 14 of them.
This is the state of affairs under Miaoli Country Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻). Last year, 300 Miaoli police officers used unprecedented force against protesters, several of them elderly, who were protesting against the construction of a funeral house in Houlong Township (後龍). Several sustained injuries.
How the National Police Administration can countenance such behavior is beyond comprehension.
Contrast those recent events with the case of Liu Zhongkui (劉忠奎), president of Great Dragon Century, a Chinese cultural and arts management firm, who earlier this year was allowed to leave the country despite allegations that he had sexually assaulted a 20-year-old female employee at a hotel in Taipei (he reportedly gave her 250 yuan, along with an order to keep her mouth shut, after forcing himself on her). Rather than investigate or even question Liu Zhongkui, the Taipei City Police Department facilitated the escape of a possible criminal, who could have faced up to five years in prison (ironically, there are echoes of Article 304 in this).
Surely, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration’s “goodwill” policy toward China does not entail turning Taiwan’s 23 million people into servants of the Chinese. Surely it does not mean that Chinese visitors with political connections can behave as they see fit, rape Taiwanese women and not suffer the consequences.
How much longer will Taiwan look the other way when Chinese break the law in Taiwan, steal from hotel rooms, repeatedly vandalize natural parks and monuments, collect intelligence or relieve themselves in the middle of an international airport? If it continues like this, the Chinese could be excused for thinking that they own the place and rule Taiwan.
This must stop. Now. Police can no longer be allowed to be complicit in a system that cracks down on innocent Taiwanese who are fighting for the future of their country, while allowing Chinese visitors to get away with murder.
Chinese are not above the law, and Taiwanese are not below it. Anyone who thinks otherwise, people like Liu Cheng-hung and whoever allowed Liu Zhongkui to escape, should bear the full consequences for their views. Taiwanese have been obsequious for far too long. It is time to grow a spine.
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
A report by the US-based Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday last week warned that China is operating illegal oil drilling inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙群島), marking a sharp escalation in Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. The report said that, starting in July, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp installed 12 permanent or semi-permanent oil rig structures and dozens of associated ships deep inside Taiwan’s EEZ about 48km from the restricted waters of Pratas Island in the northeast of the South China Sea, islands that are home to a Taiwanese garrison. The rigs not only typify
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS