A DPP lawmaker yesterday urged the governments on each side of the Taiwan Strait to collaborate on alternative ways for Taiwanese businesspeople to renew their Mainland Entry Permit in China, given the present restrictions on travel.
"Due to the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS], about 200,000 Taiwanese businesspeople in China are facing the challenge of renewing their Mainland Entry Permit before it expires," said DPP Legislator Chang Ching-fang (
Of the 600,000 or so Taiwanese businesspeople in China, 200,000 are required to renew their permits every three months. That usually means a trip to either Hong Kong or Taiwan to file the renewal application.
Chang said the SARS epidemic has created serious concern about people going to Hong Kong to renew their visas.
At the same time, Taiwan's 10-day compulsory quarantine for people coming from China, Macau and other SARS-infected areas has made people reluctant to return home as well.
"They are trying not to return home in order reduce the danger of spreading the disease," Chang said.
Chang called on the government to take the initiative and press Beijing to automatically extend the Mainland Entry Permit of any Taiwanese that is due to expire soon.
If that doesn't work, Chang said, the governments should discuss the possibility of such businesspeople filing their applications without leaving China.
"The government is responsible for helping our businesspeople working in China stay there legally, even though the Chinese authorities are the only ones who can issue the permits," he said.
In response, a Straits Exchange Foundation official, surnamed Chen, said that businesspeople in some Chinese provinces have already been given residency extensions if their permits were due to expire soon.
"After consultations between local business representatives and Chinese public security authorities, our businesspeople in Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen and Shenyang have been given permission to extend their residence permit with the local authorities," the official said.
The official said further negotiations are underway on similar extensions in other provinces.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods