The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has urged Taiwanese to assess the risks of traveling to China after Taiwanese National Party vice chairman Yang Chih-yuan (楊智淵) was reportedly arrested on charges of “endangering national security” and “secession” in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, on Wednesday.
The arrest of the 32-year-old democracy advocate was announced in a report by the state-run China Central Television (CCTV).
Yang was taken into custody by the state security bureau in Wenzhou on Wednesday on charges of being “engaged in separatist activities aimed at Taiwan’s independence,” CCTV reported.
Photo: Wu Shu-wei, Taipei Times
The council said it has yet to receive formal notice of Yang’s arrest.
It said Taiwanese should exercise caution when traveling to China given the potential risks to their personal freedom and security.
The council said it has asked China to adhere to the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, and requested that Yang’s right to a fair trial be guaranteed.
Some viewed Yang’s arrest as retaliation for US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last week.
At least two Taiwanese nationals, Shih Cheng-ping (施正屏), a retired National Taiwan Normal University associate professor, and academic Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) are imprisoned in China on national security and espionage charges.
The Democratic Progressive Party has conveyed its ire over Yang’s arrest in a statement issued on Thursday, saying that it was a serious violation of human rights.
Regional harmony is the shared responsibility of all countries in the region, and political disagreements across the Taiwan Strait should be addressed through interactions and dialogue conducted on an equal and rational basis, it said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS