President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is just paying lip service to Hong Kong’s protesters, and it needs to enact legislation to provide them with “more substantial and due protection,” the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
“Before the [Jan. 11 presidential election], the Tsai administration told everyone that it supports Hong Kong, but so far the Tsai administration’s support for Hong Kong appears to be just talk,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) told a news conference in Taipei.
With a new session at the Legislative Yuan set to open on Friday, “we hope that the Tsai administration will come up with specific measures to give Hong Kong friends more specific legal protection,” Wang said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The KMT is calling on Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration to “give them more substantial and due protection through legislation,” she said.
Since Taiwan does not have a refugee asylum law, there is no “principled law” to deal with cases where people have come to Taiwan under emergency circumstances to seek asylum for political reasons, KMT Legislator Chen I-hsin (陳以信) told the news conference.
Article 18 of the Act Governing Relations With Hong Kong and Macau (香港澳門關係條例) gives the government the ability to, under emergency situations, provide “necessary assistance” to residents of Hong Kong or Macau whose safety is threatened because of political reasons, Chen said.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
However, it is not clear if the term “necessary assistance” means that Taiwan’s immigration laws could be circumvented, as Article 74 of the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) stipulates that people who enter the nation without permission can be punished by up to three years in prison, he said.
A draft amendment to Article 18 of the Hong Kong and Macau act that he and other KMT lawmakers proposed in May would give the government a “legal basis” to deal with the issue, through “minimal amendments,” he said.
The Tsai administration’s Hong Kong Humanitarian Aid Project only applies to people who enter Taiwan legally, he said.
However, the people who are truly in need of humanitarian or emergency assistance are unable to travel legally, he added.
“Although on the surface the Tsai administration says it wants to support Hong Kong, in reality, it appears to be taking advantage of Hong Kong,” Chen said.
The DPP should prioritize the proposed amendments to the Hong Kong and Macau act in the upcoming session, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
RSS