A visit to Taiwan by Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security Chen Zhimin (陳智敏) and his delegation earlier this month was shrouded in secrecy and intentionally unpublicized, even as talks were held with senior government officials, an investigation by the Taipei Times showed yesterday.
Chen, who is believed to be the second-highest-ranking Chinese official to visit the nation in the past 12 years in an official capacity, was in Taipei from Sept. 13 through Sept. 18 and met representatives from the Ministry of the Interior, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and the Ministry of Justice.
The Taipei Times has learned that the trip’s organizers, the National Police Agency (NPA) and Chinese authorities, covered up the visit. It was only made public on Monday afternoon, more than a week after it concluded.
An NPA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the talks were secretive, adding that the agency had purposefully played down the delegation’s trip. The official said specific details of the visit would not be made public.
While the source confirmed that the 17 members of Chen’s entourage were above the deputy chief and vice director level, the NPA did not have the authority to release their names.
This could be the first time in the nation’s history that a visit by senior Chinese officials was covered up by Taiwan’s own government agencies.
The NPA released a short statement on the visit on Monday after the Central News Agency and the Chinese state-run China News broke the story.
Hsu Jui-shan (許瑞山), chief administrator of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, which organized the delegation’s itinerary, said the information was withheld because of Chen’s sensitive post, which gave his trip political ramifications.
“We had a tacit understanding with [China] … we weren’t going to release this trip to the media because of the upcoming [November] elections,” he said. “The request [for this] came from China, and as the host, we accepted.”
According to an official account of the trip, Chen, who is also the vice chairman of the Police Association of China, was visiting to promote cross-strait cooperation between police agencies and explore possibilities for greater judicial collaboration.
The NPA statement said an agreement was reached on six points, including an increase in cross-strait police exchanges, more communication on extradition and additional cooperation on security and anti-terrorism.
However, the NPA statement did not mention that Chen also met the vice ministers of justice, top CGA staff and a vice chairperson at MAC, Hsu said.
The exact names of Chen’s contacts could not be confirmed.
It is understood that unlike Chinese Minister of Culture Cai Wu (蔡武), who visited earlier this month under his unofficial title as honorary chairman of the China Friendship Association of Cultural Circles, Chen was here in his official capacity.
Documents from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security show that Chen plays an important role in Beijing’s security apparatus, having held important exchanges with his counterparts in Hong Kong and Macau, a possible reason why he was chosen to lead the delegation to Taiwan.
Last year, he traveled to southern China, where he met with police chiefs from Hong Kong and Macau and promised greater cooperation in training and fighting crime. He has also met previously with the director of MAC’s legal department, Wu Mei-hung (吳美紅).
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers told the Taipei Times that the legislature had not been informed of Chen’s visit and said that as a democracy, the government had an obligation to let the public know the details of its cross-strait negotiations.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said that if evidence of a cover-up were found, it would confirm widespread fears that the government was engaged in secret negotiations with China.
“Our concern is that this will become the norm,” he said. “There was no reason why the information could not have been released, and their excuses for covering it up are not good enough.”
DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said the visit violated public accountability and said the specific nature of Chen’s talks should be made public.
“It’s a worrying trend ... these new types of secret exchanges are extremely harmful to Taiwan,” she said.
In a telephone interview, former MAC chief Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said the more the authorities tried to keep such visits secret, the more suspicious the public would become.
“It’s OK if the PSB [Public Security Bureau] is here in Taiwan to discuss joint crime fighting,” he said. “In fact, when the DPP was in power, we tried to work with the People’s Republic of China on that issue and took pride in those efforts.”
“Why hide it from the public, then?” he said, adding that if the discussions between the Chinese delegation and Taiwanese officials turned to such topics as combating “terrorism” — which in certain Chinese circles can be construed as including “separatism” — then such visits would be far more alarming.
The Presidential Office and the National Security Council refused to comment for this report, while the MAC described the visit as “nothing special.”
Tsai Ji-ru (蔡志儒), senior specialist in the council’s legal department, said such exchanges had become the norm since the two sides signed an agreement on mutual judicial assistance and cross-strait cooperation to fight crime in June last year.
Senior Taiwanese judicial officials have also visited China since the signing of the accord, he said.
Tsai said he did not know whether the two sides had agreed to wait until Chen had returned to China to make public the visit, because the NPA had organized the trip.
Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠) and Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) applauded the visit, saying it would facilitate implementation of cross-strait agreements on crime-fighting and judicial cooperation.
Tsao, who was involved in signing the Kinmen Agreement 20 years ago — the first agreement dealing with cross-strait affairs to facilitate the bilateral repatriation of stowaways and illegal immigrants — said communications between officials from the two sides would help establish mutual trust.
Shrugging off criticism of the secrecy surrounding the visit, Tsao said examining how cross-strait agreements on crime prevention were implemented “was much more important” than whether Chen’s activities here were made public.
Lo said contacts between high-level officials from the two sides should not always be held “in the back room,” adding that there should be a certain degree of institutionalized transparency in their interactions.
The Executive Yuan said the main purpose of Chen’s visit was to allow senior police officials to exchange ideas on how to reinforce cross-strait cooperation since the Agreement on Jointly Cracking Down on Crime and Mutual Legal Assistance Across the Strait (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議) was signed in May last year.
The government was unable to reveal the contents of the meetings because their discussions concerned ongoing investigations, it said.
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
CLOSER TO CHINA: The upgraded Type-12 missile has a range of about 1,000km, compared with the original model’s range of 200km, and can reach mainland China Japan is preparing to deploy its first batch of domestically developed long-range missiles, with their launchers arriving at an army camp yesterday, as the country accelerates its offensive capability in response to rising challenges in the region. The upgraded Type-12 land-to-ship missiles are to be deployed at Camp Kengun in Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto by the end of this month, completing the process of deployment, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said without giving details. Army vehicles carrying the launchers and other equipment arrived past midnight in a highly secretive mission criticized by residents. Dozens of people stood outside of the
RSS