Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security Chen Zhimin (陳智敏), who led a delegation on a secret visit to Taiwan in the middle of last month for meetings with officials from various security-related agencies, was in Kathmandu weeks before, where he sought to strengthen Sino--Nepalese cooperation against Tibetan activists, reports showed.
During a visit on July 26, Chen, who headed a delegation of 11 officials, announced new financial assistance to Nepalese security agencies to better monitor and prevent Tibetan refugees from engaging in “anti-China activities” on its soil, Nepalese media reported.
Chen called the “anti-China activities taking in Nepal in the name of religion and human rights unacceptable to China,” adding that they posed “grave threats to the sovereignty and integrity of China.”
The meeting, held at Beijing’s behest, covered issues including border security, Tibetan refugees and collaboration on security matters, Nepalese media said.
During the visit, Chen announced an extra annual contribution by Beijing of US$1.47 million to the Nepalese Ministry of Home Affairs to strengthen its security apparatus to curb Tibetan activities.
Earlier this week, the Taipei Times asked Taiwanese officials whether the topic of “anti-China activities” was raised during Chen’s Sept. 13 to Sept. 18 visit to Taiwan.
“We didn’t discuss politics and we didn’t discuss religion. Our understanding was that we would stay on the topic at hand as outlined under our agreement to combat crime,” said Hsu Jui-shan (許瑞山), the chief administrator of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB), which organized the trip’s itinerary.
Hsu was referring to the Joint Cross-Strait Crime Fighting Agreement signed in the third round of discussions between Taiwanese and Chinese negotiators in April.
However, it is now clear that Chen, who is also a committee member of the Chinese Communist Party, has become Taiwan’s point man on police matters with the Chinese government. Information from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security shows that Chen is also responsible for maintaining senior-level contacts with police officials in Hong Kong and Macau.
The latest information by the National Police Agency reveals that Chen’s visit was the fourth time he met publicly with senior Taiwanese judicial officials. He met CIB commissioner Lin Teh-hua (林德華) in Beijing earlier in March and in October last year had exchanges with Wu Mei-hung (吳美紅), director of Legal Affairs at the Mainland Affairs Council. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Chen was responsible for receiving a low-profile delegation headed by Hsieh Hsiu-neng (謝秀能), then deputy Taipei City police commissioner, to study China’s anti-terrorism tactics and prevention measures. Hsieh has since been promoted to Taipei City police commissioner.
On what was meant by anti-terrorism, Hsu said the discussions centered on how to provide -security arrangements for large events, including Taipei City’s flora expo, which is opening next month.
Hsu also said Taiwan and China had apparently swapped lists of “subversive elements” that would be jointly watched by police authorities on both sides.
Included on the list were the names of prominent figures in Taiwanese organized crime, fugitives and some members of the public with “violent tendencies,” Hsu said.
The two sides agreed to jointly crack down on serious crime, including homicides, drug and human trafficking, as well as economic crime, including money laundering, fraud and corruption. Also included in the five-point clause were “terrorist activities” and “other criminal acts.”
Critics have expressed reservations about the ambiguous language found in the six-page agreement. A note underneath the fourth clause, for example, allows Taiwan and China to jointly proceed with police action even if a crime isn’t recognized as such by the other side. Such activity would have to be -approved by cross-strait consensus on a case-by-case basis.
However, Hsu said under another “tacit agreement,” the clause would not apply in cases of religious or political persecution. The note was essential, he said, because of some differences in legal terminology in Taiwanese and Chinese law.
Analysts said China’s growing interest and ties with Nepal were accompanied by increasing influence and interference in its domestic affairs. Acting under heavy Chinese influence, Nepalese authorities have intensified their targeting of Tibetan exiles to prevent them from taking part in demonstrations against the Chinese occupation of Tibet and repression of Tibetans.
Unlike his visit to Taiwan, no effort was made to keep Chen’s trip to Nepal secret, with reports of the meetings appearing in the media a week earlier.
Asked to comment on Chen’s visits to Nepal and Taiwan, Taiwan Friends of Tibet president Chow Mei-li (周美里) said the main impact could be on Tibetans trying to visit Taiwan.
“[Chen’s visit] is a serious matter, especially as everything was kept secret,” Chow said. “Chen met officials from the Ministry of the Interior, which is in charge of border control. He may have asked the government to refuse entry to Tibetan activists.”
Other Tibetans, however, said they did not believe the visit would lead to anything harmful to Tibetans here.
“The situations in Taiwan and Nepal are very different: The government of Nepal is very unstable, the country is very poor and relies heavily on financial support from China. Some people even say the Chinese embassy [in Kathmandu] actually runs the country,” Regional Tibetan Youth Congress-Taiwan president Tashi Tsering said. “Taiwan, on the other hand, is a real democratic country.”
Chime Tsering, another Tibetan living in Taiwan, said the Tibetan community here — with about 400 people — was not significant enough to be of concern to China.
“[Chen] must have come to Taiwan for something much bigger than Tibetans [here],” Chime said.
However, Chime said that in recent years it appeared to have become more difficult for exiled Tibetans in other countries to obtain visas to come to Taiwan.
Taiwan might be China’s next target after it has “walled off” Hong Kong from the rest of the world with its new national security legislation, Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology fellow Wu Jieh-min (吳介民) said on Thursday. At a seminar organized by the Economic Democracy Union, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Hong Kong Outlanders and the Judicial Reform Foundation, Wu said that the legislation is simultaneously a fig leaf concealing Beijing’s autocratic rule in Hong Kong and a figurative “Berlin Wall,” denying democratic countries access to Hong Kong. Wu said it is evident that Taiwan would be China’s next target. The
SAFETY CONCERNS: A construction company working nearby admitted to negligence in the incident, and is to pay a fine and other expenses related to damages Residents of homes adjacent to an alleyway in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District (永和) on Saturday were forced to evacuate their homes after the road collapsed, the New Taipei City government said yesterday. An 80m by 4m area in an alleyway on Wenhua Road (文化路) collapsed at 10:39am near an apartment building construction site where work was being done on the project’s foundation. The incident also ruptured an underground gas pipe and tilted several buildings in the area. Residents would not be able to return to their homes until tomorrow or Wednesday, when repairs are expected to be finished, the city government said. Workers
CHALLENGER DEEP: Lin Ying-Tsong was invited by Caladan Oceanic founder Victor Vescovo to join him on a 10-hour long trip in the company’s submersible Taiwanese-American Lin Ying-Tsong (林穎聰) last month became the first person from Asia and the 12th in human history to dive into the deepest part on Earth, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. Lin, 45, an expert in deep sea acoustics with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, joined US adventurer and Caladan Oceanic founder Victor Vescovo, 54, on June 22 in a descent to the central pool of the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the trench, which lies at a depth of more than 10,900m. The pair made the descent in a submersible named Limiting Factor, a US$37
ARMS RACE: Two DPP lawmakers said that China’s development model differed from Taiwan’s, as it aims to become a global hegemon, while Taiwan seeks to protect itself Taiwanese national defense experts are split on how Taiwan should respond to the ever-growing budget of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with some advocating for Taiwan to increase defense spending, while others say that little can be done. The Legislative Yuan approved NT$358 billion (US$12.1 billion) for national defense spending across fiscal 2020, a 3.47 percent increase compared with last year, while China’s military budget this year is NT$5.4 trillion, more than 15 times that of Taiwan. Regardless of whether the government adopts a zero-based budgeting method for national defense spending — in which all expenses are justified and approved each
RSS