One of two fishers from Kinmen County is still being held by Chinese authorities, after the pair went astray during a fishing trip and were rescued by the China Coast Guard earlier this week, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said yesterday.
One of the individuals is a 25-year-old man surnamed Hu (胡), whom China thinks is an active-duty soldier, while the other man, 40-year-old Wu (吳), is in the process of being returned by Chinese authorities, it said.
China’s Fujian Province coast guard rescued the two men aboard an unidentified fishing boat in the province’s Weitou Bay (圍頭灣) at 4am on Monday, the office said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
Office spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said Hu was being held because he “intentionally fabricated information about his occupation in an attempt to conceal it.”
Therefore, the Chinese authorities need to further verify Hu’s identity to fully understand the situation, he said, adding that Wu is being sent back to Kinmen County.
China had given the two individuals medical aid and other services, even allowing them to phone their families to inform them that they are safe, Chen Binhua said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Jessica Chen (陳玉珍) earlier in the day told reporters that China was still holding one of the two fishers.
She hopes China would treat Hu with kindness, and she is willing to arrange a trip to visit him and assist in his return to Kinmen, Jessica Chen said.
On Thursday, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) expressed hope that the Chinese authorities would expedite the return of two anglers.
The remarks were made after Chen Binhua confirmed on Monday that two people from Kinmen were rescued from a boat after its engine failed earlier that day.
The Coast Guard Administration personnel contacted their Chinese counterparts shortly after the incident and confirmed that the two men were safe and sound, MAC spokesman Jan Jyh-horng (詹志宏) told a news conference.
He hopes Chinese authorities would honor their promise and send the two men back as quickly as possible, he added.
Apparently, China intends to return the two individuals through non-official channels, he said.
Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Fu-hai (陳福海) also called on China to send the two anglers back home as soon as possible, saying the county government has a fishing boat ready to pick them up any time.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS