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.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS