Fugitive Rebar Group chairman Wang You-theng (王又曾) is scheduled to make his first appearance before a US immigration judge on Tuesday at the beginning of what many observers expect to be a lengthy procedure in his bid to avoid repatriation to Taiwan to face embezzlement and other charges.
US immigration authorities have set a preliminary court appearance for Wang on Feb. 13 at 8am in the San Pedro detention facility south of Los Angeles, where he has been held since being interdicted on his attempted entry into the US last Friday.
The hearing will be preliminary in nature, and will deal largely with housekeeping items, according to Elaine Komis, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which is handling the case.
In the hearing, called a master calendar hearing, the judge will discuss the charges, whether Wang needs legal representation, whether Wang wants to seek relief from deportation and similar issues.
"It's the first meeting with the judge and preliminary discussions. The merits of the case are discussed later in an individual hearing," Komis said.
In some cases, a decision on whether or not to deport an alien is made at the first hearing, but not in most instances, she said.
The US' case will be presented by a prosecutor from the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that is detaining Wang.
Provide briefs
While Taiwanese authorities will not have a separate role in the proceedings, they can provide briefs and other material to the court through the prosecution, Komis said.
Meanwhile, Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (
In his talks with US officials and others, "the sense I got is it might not be as optimistic as we want, because the United States is a country that strictly adheres to the legal system and legal procedures," which can be lengthy, he told the Taipei Times.
Taiwan's desire for a fast return for Wang was "not a realistic assessment of the real situation. If the case becomes legally entangled, Taiwan must wait for the results," Wu said. "I don't think this is going to proceed in an easy fashion."
Wu expressed some hope that ongoing cross-strait efforts to convince China to deport fleeing criminals may eventually bear fruit. Those contacts involve academics from both sides at conferences in which Taiwan seeks "to let the Chinese side understand the depth of the issues," and the anger of the Taiwanese people over China's refusal to turn over criminals.
"I think they have a much better understanding right now because of the Wang case, opinion surveys and news clips from Taiwan," he added.
More conferences
There may be more such conferences between academics and perhaps semi-governmental officials to find a better way to deal with the issue, Wu said.
He also called on cooperation from China based on the 1993 cross-strait meeting between Taiwan's Strait Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (
Asked whether China seemed willing to help, he said, "not at this point. But in recent contacts, they seem to be getting a much better understanding of the situation."
Meanwhile, in Taipei, the Taiwan Association of University Professors staged a protest outside the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday, asking the US to repatriate Wang. The AIT reiterated that since the Wang case was an ongoing legal matter the AIT therefore had no comment. There were a number of minor scuffles between police and protesters as the association did not apply for permission in advance of its protest.
Additional reporting by Jewel Huang
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