The Ministry of Justice announced yesterday that in order to drive home the point of how serious the nation is, it will send its secretary-general to an international conference on money laundering to resist pressure from Beijing to have its designation changed.
Chiang Ming-tsang (
Traditionally, only senior prosecutors have been sent to the annual event. This year is the group's fifth.
Chiang's stated goal at this year's meeting from June 4 to June 6 will be to maintain Taiwan's registered APG moniker as "Chinese Taipei." As in many other venues, China is trying force Taiwan to change its official designation to "China, Taiwan"
Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (
"It's my understanding that Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂), chief of the Bureau of Investigation, will also join the group attending the meeting," said Chen.
"We hope to show our determination to the organization by assigning higher-ranking government officials as representatives this year."
Chen said that Taiwan would deliver the message that a name change from "Chinese Taipei" to "China, Taiwan" would be quite impossible and intolerable.
According to Chiang, before its formal establishment in July 1997 the APG had its first working group meeting in Beijing.
At the time, China failed to send Taiwan an invitation. But with an invitation from the APG itself, Taiwan sent a group of high-ranking officers from the Criminal Investigation Bureau, investigators from the Bureau of Investigation and officials from the Ministry of Finance.
"Unfortunately," said Chiang, "even though our representatives were at the meeting site, they were not permitted to attend the meeting for the lack of the host's invitation."
China, Chiang said, is a country with serious money-laundering problems, with most APG members hoping Beijing will act to prevent such crimes. But China's only concern appears to be forcing Taiwan to change its official name.
In addition, China has been derelict by not participating in the APG's activities for the past two years.
"After members strongly encouraged China to join this year's meeting, Chinese representatives have again been busy trying to force us to change our name," he added. "We must do whatever it takes to make sure that our voices are heard -- and we will not change our name."
The APG was established in in 1997. Both China and Taiwan are founders of the 23 member international organization.
It has had annual meetings in Tokyo in 1998; Manila in 1999; Sydney in 2000 and Kuala Lumpur last year.
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