The Philippine government held an extraordinary meeting yesterday after Taipei lodged a protest over the deportation to China of 14 Taiwanese allegedly involved in an international fraud ring, a Taiwanese government official said on condition of anonymity, adding that Taiwan would monitor how Manila handles the matter.
The Philippine government has yet to respond formally to the protest made by Taipei on Wednesday, including a strongly worded statement that Taiwan could re-examine bilateral relations and suspend exchanges over the controversy.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also sent a letter of protest to Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.
Deputy Representative of the Philippines in Taipei Carlo Aquino apologized to Taiwan when he was summoned by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Ssu-tsun (沈斯淳) on Wednesday afternoon, ministry deputy spokesman Steve Shia (夏季昌) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Philippine Representative to Taiwan Antonio Basilio returned to Manila on Wednesday morning to deal with the matter, Shia said.
Basilio had been summoned to meet foreign ministry officials before he left and was clearly aware of Taiwan’s position that the Philippines had no right to deport the 14 Taiwanese to China, Shia said.
The Taiwanese, along with 10 Chinese, were arrested on Dec. 27 in Manila on suspicion of swindling NT$600 million (US$20.6 million) through a scam that largely targeted Chinese.
Approached for comment yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the Philippines had ignored international practice by extraditing the Taiwanese to China and had shown “disrespect” to Taiwan by “failing to cherish the friendship between the two countries.”
Wu said he had asked the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the Straits Exchange Foundation to negotiate with China to ensure the return of the Taiwanese to Taipei.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday accused the government of cowardice, accused China of making an outrageous demand and said the deportation was deplorable.
The DPP statement demanded the government look into possible neglect by Taiwan’s diplomats leading to the extradition and that it do everything in its power to ensure the 14 return to Taiwan as soon as possible.
Taipei was not active enough in its negotiations with Manila over the matter, the DPP said, adding that asking the council to handle the mater by seeking Beijing’s assistance would turn a diplomatic matter involving two countries into a cross-strait one.
The DPP called on Manila to appreciate the sensitivity of the matter and refrain from playing into Beijing’s hands.
The deportation shows that the government’s pro-Beijing policy has led other countries to conclude that Beijing has right of governance over Taiwan, the DPP said.
“How can the government protect its people when its failure in diplomacy has eroded the country’s sovereignty to such an extent that [China now has] extraterritorial rights?” the DPP said.
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
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS