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Beijing and Taipei agree to install hotline to share crime information

Criminal-investigation authorities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have tentatively agreed to install a hotline to exchange information on crime, a senior Taiwanese official said yesterday.

Cheng Ching-sung (鄭清松), commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) under the National Police Administration, told a news conference that the preliminary agreement was reached during a visit to China late last year.

With the assistance of the nation's Criminal Investigation and z Association, Cheng and several other CIB officials visited Beijing and Shanghai last December to meet with their Chinese counterparts and explore the possibility of cross-strait cooperation to fight crime.

Cheng said law-enforcement officers on both sides of the strait agreed that crime is a common enemy and keeping order is a common duty of all law-enforcement officers.

In the wake of the two sides' accession to the WTO, Cheng said, cross-strait commercial and civilian exchanges will become more frequent and a rise in criminal activity may follow.

"In addition to drug trafficking, firearms smuggling and distributing fake money, criminal rings on both sides may also collude in kidnapping, extortion, document forgery, various kinds of commercial and insurance fraud as well as all sorts of Internet-based crimes," Cheng said.

As fighting crime involves the exercise of public authority and government policy, Cheng said he and his Chinese counterparts didn't commit themselves to any formal agreements.

"Nevertheless, the law-enforcement agencies on both sides agreed to a viable communication mechanism to exchange information about criminal activities under the principles of reciprocity, safety and dignity," Cheng said, adding that the mechanism would include the installation of a cross-strait hotline.

The CIB said last year that cross-strait crimes were seriously disturbing social order, hampering Taiwan's economic development and posing a serious threat to people's quality of life, Meng said.

The bureau said last December that over 3,500 Chinese criminals were arrested in Taiwan from Jan. 1 through Oct. 31.
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