Taiwanese are sometimes forced to apply for Chinese national identification documents when they cannot repay loans at pawn shops, YouTuber Wen Tzu-yu (溫子渝), who is known as Pa Chiung (八炯) online, said in a video published yesterday.
A Kaoshiung resident in the video said a pawn shop that he borrowed money from told him he could borrow money from a bank in China’s Fujian Province after he was unable to repay the loan.
However, he would have to apply for a Chinese ID, as being a citizen would give him a higher borrowing ceiling, he told Pa Chiung.
Photo: Screen grab from a video on Pa Chiung’s YouTube channel
The man, whose voice was altered and face obscured in the video, said that the pawn shop told him to record a video stating the date of the recording, that he had not been coerced, and that he had read the details of the pawn shop’s loan contract and would abide by it.
The Telegram messaging app was the favored method of communication, he said.
Pa Chiung said in the video that since April, he and his team have uncovered 10 cases of people in similar situations.
He and his team contacted some of the people who had applied for Chinese resident or ID cards and found that they had all used the same residential address: “No. 66, Tongxin Road, Jianyang District, Nanping City, Fujian Province,” which is the address of a police precinct, he said.
The scheme might involve Chinese village officials and bank employees working through Taiwanese intermediaries, he said.
However, while his team was able to expose the issue, there was no official investigation into the matter, he said.
His team would give the information it had to the authorities and hopefully those involved would be arrested so that Taiwanese would not become “fifth columnists” in a possible invasion of Taiwan, he said.
National Cheng Kung University professor Hung Ching-fu (洪敬富) said that the reports highlight concerning loopholes in Taiwan’s national security.
China’s psychological warfare against Taiwan would only grow more severe with more people holding Chinese IDs, Hung said.
China’s “united front” departments need to demonstrate to their superiors that their rhetoric is effective, he said.
By showing that there are Taiwanese applying for Chinese IDs reinforces Beijing’s arguments that “Taiwanese are thinking of their motherland,” he said, adding that Beijing would continue with such tactics.
China’s attempts to increase the number of Taiwanese with Chinese IDs, especially young people, show that it still hopes to one day have complete judicial control over Taiwan, he said.
Some pawn shops and jewelry shops in Taiwan have long operated as unregistered remittance sites for the Chinese Communist Party, he said, adding that they are a gap in national security.
A drunk woman was sexually assaulted inside a crowded concourse of Taipei Railway Station on Thursday last week before a foreign tourist notified police, leading to calls for better education on bystander intervention and review of security infrastructure. The man, surnamed Chiu (邱), was taken into custody on charges of sexual assault, taking advantage of the woman’s condition and public indecency. Police discovered that Chiu was a fugitive with prior convictions for vehicle theft. He has been taken into custody and is to complete his unserved six-month sentence, police said. On Thursday last week, Chiu was seen wearing a white
EVA Airways, one of the leading international carriers in Taiwan, yesterday said that it was investigating reports that a cabin crew manager had ignored the condition of a sick flight attendant, who died on Saturday. The airline made the statement in response to a post circulating on social media that said that the flight attendant on an outbound flight was feeling sick and notified the cabin crew manager. Although the flight attendant grew increasingly ill on the return flight, the manager did not contact Medlink — a system that connects the aircraft to doctors on the ground for treatment advice during medical
The Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union yesterday vowed to protest at the EVA Air Marathon on Sunday next week should EVA Airway Corp’s management continue to ignore the union’s petition to change rules on employees’ leave of absence system, after a flight attendant reportedly died after working on a long-haul flight while ill. The case has generated public discussion over whether taking personal or sick leave should affect a worker’s performance review. Several union members yesterday protested at the Legislative Yuan, holding white flowers and placards, while shouting: “Life is priceless; requesting leave is not a crime.” “The union is scheduled to meet with
‘UNITED FRONT’ RHETORIC: China’s TAO also plans to hold weekly, instead of biweekly, news conferences because it wants to control the cross-strait discourse, an expert said China’s plan to expand its single-entry visa-on-arrival service to Taiwanese would be of limited interest to Taiwanese and is a feeble attempt by Chinese administrators to demonstrate that they are doing something, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said the program aims to facilitate travel to China for Taiwanese compatriots, regardless of whether they are arriving via direct flights or are entering mainland China through Hong Kong, Macau or other countries, and they would be able to apply for a single-entry visa-on-arrival at all eligible entry points in China. The policy aims
RSS