Allowing Chinese law enforcement personnel to be stationed in Taiwan as part of cross-strait efforts to prevent crime is not a finalized plan, although that is what the two sides are working toward, a Crime Investigation Bureau (CIB) official said yesterday.
“So far, we don’t have a concrete plan, but we’re working in that direction,” CIB Crime Investigation Section Chief Chiu Nien-hsing (邱念興) was quoted as saying yesterday in a Central News Agency (CNA) report.
Chiu made the comments in response to a report published by the Chinese-language China Times Weekly magazine on Friday that Chinese law enforcement personnel may soon be allowed to be stationed in Taiwan.
The magazine said China had suggested that law enforcement personnel from both sides of the Strait — Taiwanese police officers and China’s People’s Armed Police — be stationed in each country to strengthen cross-strait cooperation on crime prevention.
The suggestion has already been submitted to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and to the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) for review, and it may be discussed during cross-strait talks to be held at the end of the year, the report said.
The report also said Taiwan had requested that once a suspect wanted by Taiwan is arrested in China, Chinese law enforcement agencies should notify their Taiwanese counterparts within 24 hours.
When contacted by the Taipei Times for comment, CIB spokesman Liu Chung-chih (劉崇智) said it was a complicated issue and the CIB did not have such a plan at present.
“[Allowing Chinese law enforcement personnel to be stationed in Taiwan] is a very complicated issue because it would require laws to be revised and a lot of discussion,” Liu said. “We [the CIB] are only an executing agency, the decision-making power is in the hands of the MAC and other government authorities.”
“I can tell you that we don’t have such a plan at the moment,” he said.
When asked if it would be a future objective, Liu repeated that the CIB did not have such a plan at present.
Although the CIB denied there was any plan, the China Times Weekly report caused uproar on the Internet.
“Let’s wait and see — first it’s the police, next it will be the military,” an anonymous Internet user wrote on an online forum. “Once Chinese police and military can be legally present in Taiwan, it would be like telling the world we’ve been ‘liberated.’”
“Chinese police will soon be allowed to make arrests in Taiwan,” an Internet user with the screen name “cw” said. “Wuerkaixi, Professor Ruan Ming [阮銘], Tibetan dissidents and Taiwanese independence activists will be the first on the list.”
Both Wuerkaixi and Ruan are Chinese dissidents taking refuge in Taiwan.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
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
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
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
RSS