Beijing yesterday rejected Taiwan’s protest over Cambodia handing over Taiwanese fraud suspects to Chinese authorities, saying for the first time that the cross-strait communications mechanism “has been suspended” since the new government took office in Taipei last month.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson An Fengshan (安峰山) made the remark while answering reporters’ questions about Taipei’s protest over Cambodia’s decision to accept Beijing’s demand and send Taiwanese telecommunications fraud suspects to China for prosecution.
The mechanism for contact and communication between China and Taiwan “has been suspended” since May 20, as Taipei has not recognized the so-called “1992 consensus,” which he said is the foundation for cross-strait relations that embodies the “one China” principle.
Photo: AFP/STR
Beijing has repeatedly said that the new government of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) must accept the “1992 consensus” for what it called the warm bilateral ties over the past eight years to continue.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a tacit understanding reached during cross-strait talks in 1992 that both Taiwan and China acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what that means. In 2006, former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted he made up the term in 2000, before the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) handed power to the Democratic Progressive Party.
Efforts to fight telecom fraud and to protect the rights of victims have won the support of people in both China and Taiwan, An said.
He said that there were 25 Taiwanese in the group of 39 suspects sent to China on Friday, although earlier reports indicated that the group sent to Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province included 18 Taiwanese.
An’s comments came after the Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement on Friday voicing regret and protesting China’s failure to respect the appeal by Taiwan that no more Taiwanese suspects should be sent to China until the two sides can work out a set of principles on how to handle such issues.
Taipei has come under domestic pressure and has tried to prevent Taiwanese arrested overseas from being deported to China, although that pressure has eased after revelations that tens of thousands of Taiwanese, many of whom operate abroad to avoid detection, might be engaging in fraud targeting not only Chinese, but Taiwanese as well.
Dozens of Taiwanese fraud suspects were extradited from Kenya to China through Malaysia earlier this year, triggering an angry response.
As of press time last night, no response was available from the Mainland Affairs Council on An’s remarks.
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
Twenty EMU900 train cars manufactured by Hyundai Rotem Co are to be delivered to the Port of Hualien on Saturday, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said on Saturday as it unveiled the interior design of the new cars. The carriages are part of a large procurement project that the TRA began in 2018 to upgrade its train service quality, with the agency allocating NT$25.3 billion (US$873.05 million at the current exchange rate) to purchase 520 of the commuter cars from the South Korean company. Each EMU900 train consists of 10 cars, and they would help increase transport capacity by about 40
RSS