A high-ranking Ministry of Justice official said yesterday that Beijing has not been aggressive enough in helping to return Taiwanese fugitives who are hiding in China.
At a seminar being held in Taipei to mark the 20th anniversary of cross-strait academic exchanges in the field of law, Deputy Minister of Justice Wu Chen-huan (吳陳鐶) said Taiwan and China have been making great efforts to jointly crack down on cross-strait crime in line with an agreement they struck last April, mentioning successes such as the foiling of telephone and online fraud rings and allowing family members to visit prisoners on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
However, while Taiwan has been quick to respond to China’s requests for judicial assistance, this has not been the case on the other side, probably because of China’s vast territory, he said.
Taiwan had also designated the Ministry of Justice as the sole agency to deal with cross-strait judicial cooperation, while in China this responsibility is spread out among the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Public Security, he said.
“Many of Taiwan’s requests are pushed around among the different departments for quite a long time and some eventually get rejected,” Wu said.
The deputy minister also raised the question as to why most of the Taiwanese fugitives arrested and repatriated by Chinese authorities are those wanted for crimes other than financial fraud.
The Chinese authorities have also been criticized for being reluctant to send back the scores of Taiwanese who have fled to escape penalties for economic crimes, including Chen You-hao (陳由豪), former chairman of the now defunct Tuntex Group.
Chen fled to China in 2001 leaving around NT$60 billion (US$1.9 billion) in unpaid bank loans.
Wu urged the Chinese scholars at the seminar to help prompt the relevant agencies to handle cross-strait cooperation in a more efficient way.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
RSS