The Mainland Affairs Council yesterday said a Chinese proposal to allow court orders and related legal documents to be sent across the strait via regular mail, electronic mail or fax would not protect the rights of Taiwanese.
MAC Deputy Chairman Liu Teh-hsun (劉德勳) called the method an underhanded way to degrade Taiwan’s sovereignty because international lawsuits should be handled by the supreme courts of either country, not by local courts as proposed by Beijing, in accordance with international practice.
Moreover, Liu said Taiwan had not been consulted on the deal.
“It is obvious that Beijing is treating the matter as a domestic issue, not a country-to-country issue,” he said.
In a press conference yesterday, Huang Songyou (黃松有), vice-president of the Supreme Court of the People’s Republic of China, unveiled a new policy that allows Chinese plaintiffs to notify Taiwanese defendants via regular mail, electronic mail or fax.
These methods are grossly insufficient to protect the rights of Taiwanese defendants because, unlike registered mail, they do not confirm that the recipients have received the notices, Liu said, warning that under the new policy, people might be subpoenaed without ever knowing it.
He said that currently, any cross-strait lawsuit correspondence is handled by Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait in which both organizations act as messengers between the two supreme court systems in both countries.
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