Lawmakers yesterday condemned the Lienchiang County Government over allegations that Matsu-based smugglers were selling Australian rock lobsters to Chinese fishers, who cannot legally obtain the crustaceans due to a Chinese ban.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Hung Shen-han (洪申翰) and DPP Lienchiang County Chapter Director Lii Wen (李問) at a news conference at the legislature in Taipei accused the county of turning a blind eye to smuggling.
China in 2020 banned Australian rock lobster imports after Canberra called for an international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: Lo Pei-te, Taipei Times
Initial attempts to smuggle lobsters through Hong Kong failed after a crackdown, causing the smuggling business to move to the Taiwanese county, Hung said.
Lobsters are smuggled on cargo planes ferrying commodities and other necessities to the county, Lii said.
Lii said he had notified the county government that half of the air cargo entering the county consisted of contraband lobster, citing a manifest from Oct. 20 last year showing a shipment of 1,400kg of lobster sent from Taiwan proper to the county.
While port records show that ships carrying lobsters had left for Daciou Island (大坵), ship logs show that the vessels instead sailed to Gaodeng Island (高登), which has no residents and is home to a military garrison, he said.
The Matsu branch of the Coast Guard Administration in October last year called on the county government to stop authorizing shipments to the two islands, but the call was ignored, Lii said.
Hung said the coast guard afterward tried to cover for its lack of action, saying he county government had said that “there were no issues.”
Lii said there have long been rumors that local politicians were “shielding” illicit activity in the county, and called on the judiciary and prosecutors to look into the allegations.
Hung also demanded that the coast guard investigate the alleged smuggling and identify whether it is an isolated incident or part of an extensive network.
The coast guard yesterday said that it adheres to the law, such as the Coast Guard Act (海岸巡防法), when inspecting ships leaving ports.
It monitors vessels when they are out of port, it said, adding that no outside actors are influencing its duties.
The coast guard said that it on Dec. 9 informed the Lienchiang District Prosecutors’ Office about alleged smuggling and presented a report to the Executive Yuan’s Smuggling Committee on Dec. 26.
It said that it also forwarded a request to the county government to amend laws to provide it with the necessary legal basis to handle similar incidents.
Additional reporting by CNA
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened 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), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS