Media outlets are ablaze with accusations by the New Party that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) orchestrated a “heavy-handed” 6:30am search of the apartments of four of its members.
Investigation Bureau officers on Tuesday raided the homes of New Party spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) and members Hou Han-ting (侯漢廷), Lin Ming-cheng (林明正) and Chen Ssu-chun (陳斯俊), confiscating documents and devices, and taking them in for questioning.
The reason was for allegedly collecting and providing intelligence to the Chinese Communist Party in violation of the National Security Act (國家安全法). Some are even suggesting that the raid indicates a return to the White Terror era from 1947 to 1987 during the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) authoritarian regime.
Those people are getting ahead of themselves.
Media reports are questioning the proportionality of the raid and suggesting that the DPP is abusing its power, because the New Party is small, much reduced from its peak. It has no representation in the Legislative Yuan and only has two Taipei city councilors.
Article 2.1 of the act prohibits people from “carrying on detection, collection, consignation or delivery of any confidential documents, photographs, information or articles, or developing an organization for official use of a foreign country or mainland China, for its militaries, party duties or other official organizations.”
Commentators are asking what access the New Party members would have had to important confidential information and how they could have passed it on.
The four were arrested in connection with an espionage case involving alleged Chinese spy Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭), who has sufficient evidence stacked against him to prove he violated the act, prosecutors say.
Whether the raid was justified or proportionate depends on the nature of the investigation and what the bureau already knows. This is information to which the public is not privy.
Other objections are that the officers forced their way into Wang’s apartment and that his lawyer was kept outside the room during the search, even though Wang was neither a defendant nor a suspect, while some are questioning whether the officers were guilty of procedural violations.
First, according to reports, Wang refused the officers entry for 40 minutes.
Article 132 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) says: “If a search is resisted, force may be used, but such force may not be excessive.”
Second, according to Article 144, paragraph 2 of the code: “In executing the search or seizure, the premises subject to search may be closed to public and ... any person other than the accused, suspect or a third person ... may be prohibited to enter the premises.”
According to these passages, it could be argued that procedure was followed.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman An Fengshan (安峰山) on Tuesday released a statement, saying that “as everyone knows,” the New Party is a staunch advocate of the “one China” principle and an opponent of Taiwanese independence, and is promoting the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.
He then accused the “Taiwan authorities” of protecting “secessionist” forces and of using “all manner of tricks” to “wantonly suppress and intimidate” advocates of cross-strait peace.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
The New Party seems to have a loyal friend in the office. Perhaps there is more to the allegations than meets the eye.
In addition, if the New Party is so concerned about abuses of power, it might want to be careful what it wishes for.
In a vibrant democracy, it is appropriate that questions are asked and that the government is held to a high standard of oversight — but the White Terror era this is not.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises, the largest naval exercise in the region, are aimed at deepening international collaboration and interaction while strengthening tactical capabilities and flexibility in tackling maritime crises. China was invited to participate in RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but it was excluded this year. The underlying reason is that Beijing’s ambitions of regional expansion and challenging the international order have raised global concern. The world has made clear its suspicions of China, and its exclusion from RIMPAC this year will bring about a sea change in years to come. The purpose of excluding China is primarily
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the