Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) yesterday said that he was infuriated by the Chinese “abduction” of Taiwanese nationals, calling on the nation and the public to “take action” to demand an unconditional release and return of the seized Taiwanese to Taiwan.
Su said China’s illegal behavior was deplorable, and that Beijing’s justification that it was based on the idea that Taiwan is part of China is unacceptable.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) asked whether the Kenya imbroglio was the “fruit of Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay’s (羅瑩雪) recent visit to China.”
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Su Chih-fen said the incident has proved that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) diplomatic policy has been based on a dead-end policy of “kneeling” to China.
She said that Luo had just come back from China, where the minister, according to the ministry, trumpeted the effect and the outlook of the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議).
“Is China’s flagrant arrest of [our nationals] and returning them to Taiwan later under the table, or the internalizing of international affairs, what Luo’s visit to China delivered?” the lawmaker asked.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said China has “expanded its jurisdiction beyond all bounds,” putting all Taiwanese abroad at risk.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that China’s action has destroyed the “tacit judicial agreement” between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and that if China could force Taiwanese nationals abroad to be deported to its land, it could one day indict Taiwanese nationals abroad and have them forcibly sent to China.
“If every country follows what Kenya has done, the Chinese government could arrest Taiwanese nationals and send them to China for trial through its diplomatic allies,” former DPP legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said on Facebook yesterday.
“Beijing could use this tactic to fabricate accusations and then have those who fail to conform to Beijing’s political standards deported to China. This would have a chilling effect and seriously damage Taiwan’s sovereignty, human rights and democracy,” he said, calling on all Taiwanese to “get angry” and “protest to China and raise the country’s voice in the international community.”
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching