Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) instructed the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday to look at the possibility of Taipei and Beijing holding talks on the growing number of violations committed by Chinese visiting Taiwan.
Liu drew the MOI’s and the MAC’s attention to the issue after a report by Vice Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) during a Cabinet meeting on public order yesterday showed that Chinese nationals entering Taiwan were often found to be breaking the law.
VIOLATIONS
These violations usually involved entering Taiwan via fake marriages with Taiwanese, presenting false identification upon entering the country or lying about the purpose of their visit, the report said.
Out of the about 500,000 Chinese professionals who have visited Taiwan so far, an undisclosed number were also found to have failed to report their past or present affiliations with the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government or the Chinese Liberation Army to Taiwanese authorities, the report said.
Article 17 of the Regulations Governing Chinese Professionals’ Participation in Professional Activities in Taiwan (大陸地區專業人士來臺從事專業活動許可辦法) requires that event organizers present background information on all Chinese professionals they intend to invite to Taiwan.
The report, however, said it remained unclear whether these professionals had deliberately concealed their affiliations or the organizers had failed to conduct the appropriate background checks.
ORDER
Also at the meeting — his first since the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration came into office on May 20 — Liu vowed to ensure public order through better cooperation between the central and local governments.
He said that the importance local government chiefs give to public order plays a substantial role in maintaining order and called on the ministry to hold talks with local government chiefs and urge the latter to hold regular local-level meetings on the subject.
“Public order cannot be maintained by simply coming up with an exciting slogan or citing statistics,” he said.
“Crime prevention is as important as solving cases,” he said, adding that the Cabinet’s ultimate objective was to make sure that the public has a sense of security.
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:
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