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
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS