The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday praised the Philippine government for deporting a Taiwanese suspect in a fraud case to Taiwan rather than China, where 14 Taiwanese suspects in an unrelated fraud case had been sent early last month.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday reported that the suspect, Huang Yu-ping (黃玉平), 30, had boarded China Airlines Flight 704 at about 4pm, escorted by three Taiwanese police officers.
In response, the ministry said in a statement that Huang’s case showed Manila did not follow a so-called “one China” policy in handling cases involving Taiwanese suspects.
Manila has made a vital and positive step forward in cooperating with Taipei to clamp down on cross-border crimes, the ministry said, adding that Taiwan was determined to work with the global community to combat crime syndicates.
The Inquirer said Huang, a fugitive in Taiwan, was arrested by the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation in Quezon City on Dec. 22 along with 28 Taiwanese who had been released by the bureau.
The previously captured 14 Taiwanese were extradited to China on Feb. 2 despite a temporary restraining order Taipei had obtained.
The case sparked a row between Taipei and Manila, with Taiwan imposing several measures including more rigorous screening of Filipinos’ applications to work in Taiwan, while Manila, citing ongoing investigations, has refused to apologize.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift