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.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
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