Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) instructed the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday to look at the possibility of Taipei and Beijing holding talks on the growing number of violations committed by Chinese visiting Taiwan.
Liu drew the MOI’s and the MAC’s attention to the issue after a report by Vice Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) during a Cabinet meeting on public order yesterday showed that Chinese nationals entering Taiwan were often found to be breaking the law.
VIOLATIONS
These violations usually involved entering Taiwan via fake marriages with Taiwanese, presenting false identification upon entering the country or lying about the purpose of their visit, the report said.
Out of the about 500,000 Chinese professionals who have visited Taiwan so far, an undisclosed number were also found to have failed to report their past or present affiliations with the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government or the Chinese Liberation Army to Taiwanese authorities, the report said.
Article 17 of the Regulations Governing Chinese Professionals’ Participation in Professional Activities in Taiwan (大陸地區專業人士來臺從事專業活動許可辦法) requires that event organizers present background information on all Chinese professionals they intend to invite to Taiwan.
The report, however, said it remained unclear whether these professionals had deliberately concealed their affiliations or the organizers had failed to conduct the appropriate background checks.
ORDER
Also at the meeting — his first since the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration came into office on May 20 — Liu vowed to ensure public order through better cooperation between the central and local governments.
He said that the importance local government chiefs give to public order plays a substantial role in maintaining order and called on the ministry to hold talks with local government chiefs and urge the latter to hold regular local-level meetings on the subject.
“Public order cannot be maintained by simply coming up with an exciting slogan or citing statistics,” he said.
“Crime prevention is as important as solving cases,” he said, adding that the Cabinet’s ultimate objective was to make sure that the public has a sense of security.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS