President Chen Shui-bian (
"Although the human traffickers, boat owners and pimps should be responsible for the incident, the authorities in Beijing should take most of the responsibility, and China's leaders cannot escape it," Chen said while receiving a group of Australian lawmakers.
PHOTO: TU YI-CHING, TAIPEI TIMES
Smugglers threw 26 Chinese women overboard early on Tuesday near Tunghsiao, Miaoli County, as they tried to escape pursuing coast guard boats.
Chen said the women were "using their feet to vote" against the Chinese government by risking their lives to get to Taiwan.
"What Beijing should endeavor to do is prevent its nationals from escaping to Taiwan, instead of protesting against Taiwan's participation in the international community, including blocking Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Organization and demanding its diplomatic allies boycott ROC passports with the word `Taiwan' on the cover," he said.
"It's really bewildering. What China should care about is protecting human lives and the property of its people, but what it actually does is unceasingly oppress Taiwan's international participation," the president said.
The DPP yesterday condemned the brutality of the smugglers but also urged the Chinese government to step up measures to prevent illegal immigration to Taiwan.
"China has been reluctant to curb rampant human trafficking and sometimes simply turns a blind eye to the situation," said Cheng Wen-tsan (
Cheng said China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait has also been procrastinating over demands by its counterpart in Taiwan, the Straits Exchange Foundation, to discus how illegal Chinese immigrants are repatriated. He said this was an example of China's indifference toward the issue that ultimately led to this latest tragedy.
The 20 women rescued yesterday are being cared for at the Coast Guard Administration's branch office in Lukang, Changhua County, from where they will be deported to China.
The four Taiwanese smugglers -- Yeh Tien-sheng (
The Coast Guard Administration discovered the smugglers on Tuesday morning and gave chase. The smugglers then forced the women into the sea even though some of them protested that they could not swim.
In related news yesterday, the police caught another 13 Chinese women being smuggled into Taiwan.
Illegal immigration is common along the west coast because its sandy beaches make covert landings easy.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique