The Ministry of Justice yesterday said it has rejected a request by the Philippines to send investigators to Taiwan to interview the crew of the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28 and conduct another autopsy on the body of the fisherman shot dead by Philippine Coast Guard personnel.
Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang (陳明堂) told a press conference that the ministry had received a letter from the Philippines requesting legal assistance from Taiwan for its investigation into the May 9 shooting death of Taiwanese fisherman Hung Shih-cheng (洪石成) in waters where the two countries’ exclusive economic zones overlap.
Chen said in the letter the Philippine agreed to allow Taiwanese investigators to board the Philippines vessel where the shots fired at the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28 came from and also agreed to allow Taiwanese investigators to inspect the firearms used in the incident and compare ballistics results with those obtained by Philippine investigators.
Photo: AFP
Chen said the ministry saw these offers as a positive development.
However, Manila also expressed the hope that its investigators could meet with the crew of the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28, take their statements and conduct another autopsy, he said.
The ministry could not agree to those requests because Manila’s letter did not respond to Taiwan’s earlier requests for Taiwanese investigators to see a video of the incident shot by the Philippine boat and for Taiwanese investigators to interview Philippine Coast Guard officers, Chen said.
The ministry felt that the two sides have not reached consensus and that mutual legal assistance has not been conducted under the principles of equality and reciprocity, he said, so it felt the proposal to send an investigation team to Taiwan should be delayed.
Negotiations are continuing, Chen said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) Chairman Amadeo Perez has clarified media reports that he mentioned the Philippines’ “one China” policy in his public remarks about Hung’s death.
The foreign ministry said in a press release that it received a letter from MECO on Tuesday night saying there had not been any mention of a “one China” policy in Perez’s public statements or interviews with regard to the fatal incident.
However, the foreign ministry declined to disclose the contents of the letter. Spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said that it was not proper to reveal the contents because the missive was an official letter between MECO and its counterpart, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Manila.
MECO’s Taipei office confirmed it had received the letter, but also refused to reveal its contents.
The letter was a reply to inquiries made by Taiwan seeking clarification of Perez’s comments on a “one China” policy, the Taipei office said.
Hung’s death led the government to impose 11 sanctions on Manila after it felt dissatisfied with the Philippines’ responses to its four demands.
The first of those demands was “a formal apology from the Philippine government.”
Perez traveled to Taipei last week as Philippine President Benigno Aquino III’s personal representative to convey his deep regrets and apology to the family of Hung and the people of Taiwan over the incident and the “unintended” loss of life.
Taiwan did not accept the apology because Perez described the incident as “unintended.”
An official familiar with the matter said last week that the government had planned to accept the apology made by Aquino through Perez as a formal apology from the Philippine government, but it could not accept his use of the term “unintended.”
After returning to Manila from Taipei, Perez told DZMM radio that Taiwan’s government wanted Aquino to write a personal letter of apology, but this could be considered a violation of the Philippines’ “one China policy, according to an Agence France-Presse report on Sunday.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS