Ni Zichuan (倪子川), a 53-year-old Chinese official with the Political Consultative Taiwanese, Hong Kong and Macao Overseas Chinese Liaison Committee in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, was caught shoplifting from a supermarket near his hotel in Hsinchu on Friday.
Ni was found to have stolen skincare products worth just NT$99 on two separate occasions. The manager of the supermarket said the police were brought in and the suspect was sent to the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office.
Prosecutors, however, felt that the crime was not very serious and Ni was set free. They took into account mitigating circumstances, such as the fact that the accused admitted his crimes and had come to an agreement with the store manager.
Criticizing the authorities, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said yesterday that this was just the latest example of Chinese officials being let off after a brush with the law in Taiwan. The last incident involved a Chinese tourist taking surreptitious photos of a military facility.
Tsai said it was symptomatic of law enforcement’s servile and obsequious attitude when it comes to Chinese breaking the law in Taiwan.
Intelligence services became interested in the case after it was suggested that Ni was the director of a Taiwan affairs office in China, but it was later clarified that his position was at the provincial or metropolitan level.
Further investigations revealed that Ni was director of the office.
The National Immigration Agency said Ni had applied to enter Taiwan as a tourist and had been granted a one-month visa. He did not include information about his occupation on the application.
Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章), a spokesman for the Straits Exchange Foundation, said the case was currently under investigation and that appropriate measures would be taken.
Ni faced the media on Friday, producing his Chinese ID to prove his identity. He said he had been a public servant for 30 years and had been in his current position as director of the Fengze District local office for more than three years.
Ni said that he had come to Taiwan with a 16-member group, including seven entrepreneurs in the fields of handicrafts and logistics, looking for business opportunities. They arrived on May 3 and were to leave on Tuesday.
Commenting on the case, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said he believed prosecutors had acted correctly.
Hsieh said the prosecutors’ decision was in line with the principle of exemption from petty criminal prosecutions enshrined in the Criminal Code.
“If this happened to a Taiwanese citizen, I believe they would also be released. If the Chinese official stole an item valued at more than NT$20,000 he would have been detained, but NT$198 is OK,” Hsieh said.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said prosecutors did not compromise the nation’s judicial jurisdiction as “it was the prosecutors’ decision [not to charge him]. It was not determined by the Chinese government.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN,TSENG WEI-CHEN AND SU YUNG-YAO
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS