After reeling from criticism and public pressure, officials at the Ministry of Justice reversed their stance on the deportation of Taiwanese from Kenya to China, making public statements yesterday to say that Taiwan has legal jurisdiction over its citizens and needs to negotiate with China on the handling of the suspects.
Deputy Minister of Justice Lin Hui-huang (林輝煌) said it came down to an issue of “concurrent jurisdiction,” in that both Taiwan and China have legal jurisdiction with regard to such cases and therefore it must be handled by cross-strait negotiations.
In the Kenya case, in which the suspects allegedly engaged in telecoms fraud, “Taiwan has jurisdiction because it involves Taiwanese nationals, but China insists that it has jurisdiction because the victims are Chinese nationals,” Lin said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Under such conditions of “concurrent jurisdiction,” the states involved must convene negotiations, he said at the legislature in Taipei.
“Therefore, our ministry will work with the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attain the result that conforms to the law, while respecting our nation’s dignity and sovereignty,” he said.
Legislators lambasted ministry officials, in particular Tai Tung-li (戴東麗), deputy director of the ministry’s Department of International and Cross-Strait Legal Affairs, who on Tuesday suggested that Beijing had the legal right to deport the Taiwanese to China.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“In the Kenya incident, the whole nation should unite together to help our fellow citizens, but we have some government officials who are letting us down,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said. “Tai said China taking our citizens by force from Kenya conforms to principles of international criminal jurisdiction. Why did she take China’s side?”
Fellow DPP Legislator Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) questioned Tai’s stance that China’s move conformed to international law.
Tai responded by saying that China has jurisdiction in the case, while Taiwan also has jurisdiction.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman An Fongshan (安峰山) yesterday said that Taiwanese should look at the issue from the victims’ viewpoint.
“These offenders carried out their criminal activities in a foreign country. Victims were all Chinese residents, so of course, China has jurisdiction in this case,” An said.
An said China’s justice agencies would conduct a thorough and detailed investigation, during which the legal rights of the Taiwanese suspects would be protected.
He added that many Chinese citizens were victims of the fraud, including the elderly, teachers, students, farmers, laborers and pensioners, some of whom lost their life savings, lost money they needed to treat illnesses or even committed suicide.
Officials at the Chinese Ministry of Public Security yesterday said that they have jurisdiction to investigate the group of suspects.
“In these cases, when Taiwan and China handle it separately, these criminals often do not receive their deserved punishment and we cannot give the defrauded money back to the victims,” the officials said.
In the past two years, officials said Kenyan authorities had arrested 67 people from China and 50 from Taiwan in two major busts of telecom fraud rings targeting people living in Beijing, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hunan and five other Chinese provinces.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS