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
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
RSS