China’s apparent manipulation of organized crime groups in Taiwan will not be tolerated, Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said yesterday.
“The government will not tolerate such manipulation and the infiltration of Taiwan’s democratic society from abroad. We are resolved to take action and face the problem, and will conduct a full and in-depth investigation,” Yeh said during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
“We are a nation based on the legal framework of our Constitution, and the people have strong faith in our democratic institutions. Therefore, we must deal with this matter in a serious manner, fully investigate it and take up measures to counter it,” he added.
Photo: CNA
Yeh’s remarks followed a report yesterday by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times), which suggested that the Chinese Ministry of State Security has been operating an “external liaison office” in Xiamen, China, that communicates with and provides financial assistance to organized crime groups in Taiwan.
Citing sources in the nation’s intelligence agencies, the Liberty Times said that the external liaison office is nominally an organization at the provincial level under China’s Taiwan Affairs Office that handles cross-strait exchange programs, but is in reality an intelligence operations center for political warfare, covert espionage activities and related “united front” work against Taiwan.
As the local unit of the Chinese ministry, it is mainly tasked with monitoring Taiwanese organized crime groups that have business and other activities in China, with the aim of recruiting and manipulating the groups into working for Beijing, the report said.
The external liaison office has successfully built up a good working relationship with Taiwan’s Bamboo Union and the Four Seas Gang, whose members receive funding to do Beijing’s bidding, the report added.
Senior members of the two groups who ran afoul of the law and fled to China to establish businesses or operate in the underground economy became easy targets for recruitment by Chinese intelligence agencies, as they had to collude with local officials to be able to operate and receive forms of political and police protection, the report said.
New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) yesterday urged the government to get a handle on the situation and determine if the Chinese government had a direct hand in attacks on university students by members of the Chinese Unity Promotion Party (CUPP) at a music festival in Taipei on Sunday.
“Shanghai Municipal Taiwan Affairs Office Director Li Wenhui (李文輝) was at the ‘Sing! China: Shanghai-Taipei Music Festival.’ We must find out if he played a role in the violence by CUPP members against students,” Hsu said.
“We know CUPP Chairman Chang An-le (張安樂) is a gang boss and that he has close links to Chinese authorities,” Hsu said. “It looks like red [China] and black [organized crime organizations] are joining forces against Taiwan.”
“It is also important to find out if these criminal gangs and the CUPP are receiving large sums of money from China to finance their activities in Taiwan,” he added.
AMPHIBIOUS EXERCISES: The defense ministry said that it had detected 24 Chinese PLA Air Force planes entering Taiwan’s air defense zone over the previous 24 hours Chinese movements around Taiwan were “abnormal,” Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday, flagging recent amphibious exercises in addition to drills Taipei has observed in China’s Fujian Province. Taiwan has reported a rise in Chinese military activity over the past week as dozens of fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships, have operated around the nation. “Our initial analysis is that they are doing joint drills in September, including land, sea, air and amphibious,” Chiu told reporters at the legislature in Taipei. The “recent enemy situation is quite abnormal,” he said. The comments followed a statement from the
IN MOURNING: Tsai visited the site and spoke with family members of those killed, while all the major presidential candidates said they would temporarily halt campaigning A fire and subsequent explosions at a golf ball factory at Pingtung Technology Industrial Park (屏東科技產業園區) killed at least seven people, including four firefighters, and injured 98, while three were still missing, authorities said yesterday. The blaze at Launch Technologies Co’s (明揚國際) plant on Jingjian Road raged for more than 12 hours after it started at about 5pm on Friday, officials said. The Pingtung County Fire Bureau early yesterday used large excavators to search for missing people, while family members waited at the scene. Pingtung County Fire Bureau Director Hsu Mei-hsueh (許美雪) said the bureau received a call about the fire at 5:31pm
DETERRENCE: The president on Thursday is to launch the first indigenous submarine, which is to enter sea trials next month before being delivered to the navy next year Taiwan hopes to deploy at least two new, domestically developed submarines by 2027, and possibly equip later models with missiles to bolster its deterrence against the Chinese navy and protect key supply lines, the head of the program said. Taiwan has made the Indigenous Submarine Program a key part of an ambitious project to modernize its armed forces as Beijing stages almost daily military exercises. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who initiated the program when she took office in 2016, is expected to launch the first of eight new submarines on Thursday under a plan that has drawn on expertise and technology from
FISHING FUROR: The latest spat was sparked by a floating barrier that was found across the entrance of Scarborough Shoal during a resupply mission to fishers Beijing yesterday warned Manila not to “stir up trouble” after the Philippine Coast Guard said it removed a floating barrier at a disputed reef that was allegedly deployed by China to block Filipino fishers from the area. Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in the South China Sea has long been a source of tension between the nations. China seized the ring of reefs from the Philippines in 2012 and has since deployed patrol boats. The latest spat was sparked by a 300m floating barrier that was found across the entrance of the shoal last week during a routine Philippine government resupply mission
RSS