Mon, Feb 24, 2003 page8

• Editorial: No excuse for shameful delay

  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Why is the government stalling over the case of Xu Bo (徐波)? The Chinese dissident has been forced to camp out in a police office at CKS airport for nearly a month while the government considers his application for political asylum.

  We have heard a number of different reasons why a decision on Xu's case has taken so long. First we were told that, since he was traveling on a false passport, there was a question of identity. That question having been resolved, we were then told that there was nevertheless doubt as to whether Xu was a genuine escapee from political persecution. Xiang Lin (相林), deputy secretary of the Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition, a group led by dissident Wei Jingsheng (魏京生), has identified Xu as the head of the group's office in Seoul, a position he has held since March last year.

  After his 30,000-character book on the Tiananmen crisis, Red Fascist, irked Beijing's red fascists, Xu fled China's security state in 1999 and sought refuge in South Korea. There he was granted refugee status by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which asked the South Korean government not to deport him. But he also received less-than-welcome attention from Seoul's National Intelligence Service which labeled him "an anti-establishment activist" and sought his deportation, irrespective of UNHCR's request. Fearing that it was just a matter of time before the South Koreans sent him back to China, Xu hopped on a plane to Thailand that stopped over in Taipei, and asked for asylum here.

  Xu's problem, the government now says, is that this country has no asylum law -- you can't claim asylum because the nation doesn't recognize the concept. This seems strange when one considers that the ROC is itself an exile from China. It seems downright reprehensible when one considers how many leading lights of the DPP have themselves spent time in political exile. When the DPP came to power it promised an emphasis on human rights and a shakeup of the legal system according to that agenda. This has yet to come.

  This is the second time in less than six months that Taiwan's lip-service-only attitude to human rights has been on display. Last October Tang Yuanjun (唐元雋) swam from Xiamen to Kinmen and sought asylum. There could be no doubt of Tang's bona fides as a dissident. He has already served 12 years in China's jails post-Tiananmen and then returned to jail for organizing the China Democracy Party. Once again the government prevaricated, wringing its hands over the absurd proposition that if you grant asylum to one Chinese democracy activist the nation will be flooded with asylum seekers. Eventually the government dodged the issue because the US said it would take Tang.

  It is interesting to note the silence of the pan-blue camp on the fate of these dissidents. The only politicians who have shown any concern are from the TSU. There was a a time when the pan-blue camp would welcome "anti-communist heroes." Now it is conspiring with China in the destruction of this nation's democracy, it isn't interested.

  But the real source of disgust over this country's attitude to both Xu and Tang comes from the suspicion that the reluctance to take them in comes from a desire to appease China. If so then this attitude can only be roundly condemned. It is deplorable if this nation is prepared to trade human-rights principles for a cozier relationship with the dictators next door. Let's be honest: the democratization of China, the replacement of the vicious clique that tyrannizes that luckless foreign land by a democracy is, along with the US Seventh Fleet, probably Taiwan's only long- term hope. There is a natural unity of interest between the dissidents and this country. That the government cannot find a place for them here is a scandal.

  Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    German warships to pass through Strait

  • 2

    Sino-Russian air patrol designed to counter US

  • 3

    Court orders Ko Wen-je’s detention

  • 4

    Silicon photonics alliance formed

  • 5

    Ko Wen-je release quashed