Taiwan would seem like a terrific place for Chinese dissidents to seek political asylum.
The country has a democratic, ethnic Chinese society. Its leaders are former dissidents who spent years struggling against an authoritarian regime. And the government says it cherishes human rights and wants to see rival China blossom into a democracy. But Chinese dissidents who come to Taiwan usually don't get a warm welcome. They're often treated with deep suspicion and are locked up for weeks, sometimes months, as the government decides whether to ship them back to China or pass them off to another country.
That's what is happening to two Chinese who have become the focus of a new campaign for better treatment of asylum seekers. Both of the men, Yan Peng (
Such a law is being written, said Jeff Yang (
But the law's fate seems uncertain because some officials oppose it.
Vice President Annette Lu (
"It would create an extreme amount of pressure for us," Lu said.
"Some could be spies," Lu added. "Frankly speaking, we would be taking a risk."
The constant sense of danger has warped the Taiwanese view of Chinese and has made them overly cautious about asylum seekers, said Wu'er Kaixi (
"This country for a long time has been threatened by a big, powerful bully neighbor," said Wu'er, a former student leader during the bloody 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. "This kind of makes them narrow minded. They can only see their enemies."
Wu'er added that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is also obsessed with domestic politics and cares little about pushing for a freer, more democratic China.
"They don't care about anything outside of this island," said Wu'er, who fled to France after Tiananmen and later lived in the US. "The only thing they know is how to struggle on this island and make their own presence, to fight for survival."
The DPP was once banned when Taiwan was ruled by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Many DPP members -- including President Chen Shui-bian (
Rights activist Chang Fei-lan said that considering the ruling party's dissident past, it should feel a moral obligation to do more for asylum seekers, who are held at detention centers with prostitutes, smugglers and other illegal immigrants from China.
Chang, of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, said that Taiwan can easily manage the flow of asylum seekers by setting strict criteria for those allowed in.
"But I think the government is worried that if the asylum seekers become a big issue, it will further complicate relations with China," she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching