The family of Bruce Chung (鍾鼎邦) pleaded with the government for the second time in 10 days to do something about his detention in China.
Chung, a 53-year-old Falun Gong practitioner, was arrested in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, on June 18 as he was about to return to Taiwan and accused of “sabotaging national and public security.”
“We do not want to wait for another minute or another second because his life is at stake,” Chung Ai (鍾愛), Chung Ting-pang’s daughter, told a press conference in Taipei organized by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩).
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
This was the second press conference the family has called after making the same appeal with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers on June 22.
The family has had no contact with Chung Ting-pang since his arrest or been provided with any further details about the case since the first press conference in which they urged the government to help, Chung Ai said.
Hsu made three demands: the immediate return of Chung Ting-pang to Taiwan, the assistance of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in hiring a lawyer to defend Chung Ting-pang, the arrangement of a family visit and a discussion on how to protect Taiwanese from harassment in China in upcoming cross-strait negotiations.
“We have to make sure that Taiwanese are legally protected before engaging in broader cross-strait exchanges,” the lawmaker said.
Chung Ting-pang’s wife, surname Lee (李), was in tears at the conference, saying the government was the only channel available to the family to seek the return of her husband.
Officials from the SEF, the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Justice attended the press conference, said they had been in contact with their Chinese counterpart since the arrest and were assured that Chung Ting-pang was safe.
Yu Shiu-duan (俞秀端), deputy director-general of the ministry’s department of International and Cross-Strait Legal Affairs, said officials in the Chinese Ministry of Public Safety had given assurances that Chung Ting-pang was safe and well, but provided no further details as to his arrest.
A report last Tuesday from China’s Xinhua news agency said that Chung Ting-pang had secretly collected documents and incited Chinese citizen’s to destroy broadcasting equipment — crimes which endangered national and public safety.
Chung Ting-pang’s background as a practitioner of Falun Gong, which is banned in China, was not mentioned at the press conference.
According to Chung Ai, her family has been struggling with whether to draw attention to Chung Ting-pang’s Falun Gong practice, which government officials suggested would only “complicate the case.”
In contrast, Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group spokesperson attorney Teresa Chu (朱婉琪) advised Chung Ting-pang’s family that his Falun Gong background could be used to pressure Beijing.
Between 1998 and 2009, 13 Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioners have been detained, imprisoned or tortured in China, Chu said, though they had all been released.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the