Chinese criminals and spies entering Taiwan remain a problem that must be better addressed by coordinating all elements of law enforcement, a spokesman for the State Public Prosecutor General's Office under the Supreme Court said yesterday.
With the increase in cross-strait movements -- by both legal and illegal means -- it is important that prosecution, investigation, police agencies and the Coast Guard Administration step up cooperation, the spokesman said.
According to a National Security Council (NSC) official, information gathered by the council clearly shows that an increasing number of Chinese spies and criminals have entered Taiwan to develop their organizations and activities in the country influence Taiwan's economy, social order and politics.
Although it is much more difficult to trace those who have entered via legal means, the recent cracking of several cases related to Chinese intelligence agents hidden in Taiwan is proof that the Investigation Bureau has been effective, the official said.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Friday had warned that a large number of Chinese intelligence agents and criminals have entered Taiwan and have conspired with domestic criminal rings, posing serious threats to domestic security.
Chen said they were as dangerous as terrorists and claimed that many of them were former military servicemen and security officers in China, making their ties to organized crime even more porblematic.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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