■ Crime
Salesman gets life in Manila
A Kaohsiung salesman was jailed for life in the Philippines yesterday for smuggling drugs, a court said. Hsu Jiu-chang, 30, was found guilty of smuggling 7.5kg of methampethamine hydrochloride, also known as "ice," on a commercial plane that arrived at Manila airport in September 2001. Customs police found the drugs mixed with Chinese wine in a jar that the defendant, a marketing agent of Touch Radio Co, had hand-carried on the flight from Xiamen, court records show. Court officials said Hsu had pleaded innocent and that he had brought in the jar as a favor to a friend who wanted it delivered to another person in the Philippines.
■ Cross-strait Ties
Beijing names new official
China yesterday appointed a Taiwanese speaker who has been dealing with Taiwanese investors as a vice minister for Taiwan affairs. The State Council named Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中), 53, Communist Party boss of Xiamen, as deputy director of the policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office, the official Xinhua news agency said. Taiwanese investors have poured billions of dollars into Xiamen and other parts of Fujian Province. The appointment of Zheng, who replaces the retiring Li Bingcai (李炳才), is part of a shift in the government's policy towards Taiwan.
■ Politics
Protesters take aim at Japan
A group of Aborigines will protest at a controversial Tokyo war shrine next week to demand that the names of Taiwanese soldiers listed there be removed, organizers said yesterday. The 60-member group, led by Aboriginal independent Legislator May Chin (高金素梅), will also travel to Osaka where a court is expected to deliver a verdict on June 17 on a legal case seeking the removal of the names from the Yasukuni shrine. Aboriginal groups have staged several protests against Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Shu Chin-chiang (蘇進強) for making a pilgrimage to Yasukuni in April. They demanded Shu apologize for visiting the shrine. Su argued that he was paying tribute to some 28,000 Taiwanese -- many of them Aborigines forced to join the Japanese military -- whose names were enshrined there, not war criminals.
■ Society
Wuer Kaixi juggles debt
Tiananmen student leader and veteran activist Wuer Kaixi (吾爾開希) has said he will repay credit-card debts totaling NT$630,000 (US$20,200). Wuer Kaixi, who is married to a Taiwanese woman and is resident in this country, visited the offices of the Bank of Shanghai yesterday morning to say that he was able to repay the debt in installments. If payments were made on schedule, the bank said, it would not seize his assets. Wuer Kaixi applied for a credit card and a subsidiary card for his wife, Chen Hui-ling (陳慧玲), in September 2002, and subsequently spent heavily on hotels and restaurants. Originally, he was able to make the scheduled payments, but after taking out a credit-card loan in September 2003, he was only able to make minimum payments and the debt spiraled out of control. The bank recently took legal action to reclaim the debt.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard