A new alliance launched in Taipei on Tuesday last week has reportedly compiled a list of more than 11,000 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials it says should be barred from visiting Taiwan for the role they have played in human rights abuses in China.
The “No CCP Villain International Alliance” (www.noccpvillain.org), which comprises groups such as the Victims of Investment in China Association (VICA), the Taiwan Friends of Tibet and the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group, as well as human rights activists and individuals who were persecuted by Chinese authorities, has handed its list to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃), who is expected to pass it on to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Epoch Times reported on Monday.
The legislature passed a resolution in early December barring known CCP human rights abusers entry into Taiwan. The resolution, co-introduced by Chen and adopted by parties on both sides of the aisle, requires government authorities — including the MAC and the NIA — to deny Chinese officials who are known to have been involved in human rights abuses entry into Taiwan.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Greater Kaohsiung and Chiayi, as well as Changhua, Hualien, Miaoli and Yunlin counties, have adopted similar, albeit separate, resolutions.
Despite the measures, later that month Beijing Deputy Mayor Ji Lin (吉林) was allowed to visit the country despite claims by rights organizations that he had played a key role in the repression of Falun Gong practitioners since 1998.
According to the Epoch Times, included among the 11,000-plus names are Liaoning Governor Chen Zhenggao (陳政高), who arrived in Taiwan for a visit on Tuesday, and Anhui Governor Wang Sanyun (王三運), who intends to visit in April. Both Chen Zhenggao and Wang have been accused by the Falun Gong of participating in or facilitating the persecution of its followers.
“The Alliance hopes the government will make public who it invites and its reviewing process on these people,” Taiwan Friends of Tibet chairwoman Chow Mei-li (周美里) told the paper. “The government should consider the list we have provided and refuse entry to those officials who violate human rights.”
Although the alliance is based in Taipei, Teresa Chu (朱婉琪), a spokesperson for the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group and an attorney, said its scope was global and “belongs to the Chinese people around the world and will exist till the day the CCP stops suppressing the human rights of people in China.”
In addition to the persecution of Chinese rights activists, Falun Gong practitioners and Tibetans, the alliance also takes into consideration abuse by the CCP against China-based Taiwanese businesspeople.
Addressing a conference on cross-strait relations on Tuesday, Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), director of National Chengchi University’s Prediction Market Center, said the individual safety of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople continued to deteriorate while cross-strait relations were ostensibly improving amid warming ties.
VICA president William Kao (高為邦), whose factory in China was looted by unidentified men in 1999, and who left China in 2001 after his requests for help from Chinese authorities were ignored, was quoted by the Epoch Times as saying that information from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office showed that every year, 2,000 business investors from Taiwan were victimized in China, or more than 40,000 in the past two decades. Expropriation of property, jailing and court cases in violation of due process are among the crimes committed against Taiwanese in China, the paper said.
Kao said that as many cases likely went unreported, the total number probably amounted to 100,000, adding that in the past 20 years, not a single Chinese official had been punished for actions targetting Taiwanese businesspeople.
ATTACK UNLIKELY: China would become ‘pariahs internationally for just the wanton destruction of Taiwan’ and would have little to gain from it, Trump’s security adviser said A top White House official on Friday urged Taiwan to build up its military capabilities to protect against a possible invasion by China, saying that Beijing would have that ability in 10 to 15 years. US President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told the Aspen Security Forum that a missile attack by China against Taiwan would be much too destructive. An amphibious attack is a possibility, although at the moment it is beyond China’s capability, he said. However, China could combine that threat with “gray zone” operations, embargoes, harassment and other actions to intimidate the nation if Taipei does not build
TAKES THE CAKE: Chinese diplomats tried to take photographs of people attending a National Day event in Suva, before reportedly assaulting a Taiwanese diplomat The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned the Chinese embassy in Fiji over a fracas at its Double Ten National Day event at a Suva hotel, while a lawmaker demanded that the ministry file a lawsuit against Chinese embassy personnel for injuring a Taiwanese diplomat at the event. The Grubsheet news blog on Sunday and New Zealand-based Asia-Pacific Report Web site yesterday reported that two members of the Chinese embassy in Suva tried to force their way into a celebration held by the Taipei Trade Office in Fiji at the Grand Pacific Hotel on Oct. 8 to take photographs of
TAIPEI REACTIONS: Joanne Ou decried China’s ‘gangster diplomacy,’ while MOFA said its Fiji counterpart dealt fairly with the incident and protected the trade office’s rights The world should denounce the actions of Chinese embassy staffers in Fiji against a Taiwanese diplomat during a National Day celebration in Suva, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday as it thanked the Fijian government for its help after the Oct. 8 incident. Two Chinese diplomats tried to force their way into a celebration held by the Taipei Trade Office in Fiji at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva on Oct. 8, and a Taiwanese diplomat who tried to stop them taking photographs suffered a head injury. MOFA spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told a news briefing that the ministry
TIT FOR TAT? Messages sent through channels have urged Washington to drop its prosecutions of Chinese researchers or see Americans put at risk Chinese officials warned their US counterparts as early as the summer that they might detain Americans in China if the US does not stop prosecuting Chinese academics linked to the Chinese military, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. China sent repeated warnings through multiple channels, including the US embassy in Beijing, the report said. The message has been blunt: The US should drop prosecutions of the Chinese academics in US courts, or Americans in China might find themselves in violation of Chinese law, the newspaper cited sources as saying. The US has charged several
RSS