Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) vowed yesterday to maintain safety during next week’s cross-strait talks in Taichung, saying police brutality should not happen this time around.
Talking to reporters at the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee yesterday morning, Jiang said the Taichung City Government and Taichung City Police Bureau would take care of security for the meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
The central government will do its best to support them, Jiang said.
Normally about 200 police would be deployed, Jiang said. The number would be boosted to 1,000 for Chen’s trips outside the city, he said, adding that it would increase in accordance with the scale of protests if the situation escalates.
“We will do our best to prevent any bloody conflict,” he said. “Such regretful incidents as police attacks on civilians or reporters should not happen again.”
National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) said he did not know whether Beijing would send a security detail to protect Chinese media covering the meeting. No matter who they send, security operations would be handled by Taiwanese authorities, he said.
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said a Chinese security detail could come here as “professionals,” but they could not perform security duties.
Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) reiterated the administration’s resolve to protect freedom of speech, saying Taiwan was a democracy where individual freedom to express opinions should be respected and protected as long as it is done in a peaceful, reasonable and legal fashion.
No matter what happened, Lai said the meeting and other arrangements would go ahead as planned and she believed the Ministry of the Interior and security agencies would use their experience and professionalism in a proper manner.
Lai said three sets of talks have been held, including two in China, and the nine agreements and one consensus signed thus far have produced “positive results.”
Lai made the remarks during a long break in the legislative committee meeting after it ground to a halt at around 10am because the ruling and opposition parties were arguing over whether Chiang should attend the meeting.
The meeting did not resume until 6pm when the chairwoman, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩), declared the meeting over.
Chiu voiced regret over Chiang’s no-show, accusing him of spiting the legislature by ignoring the committee’s invitation to deliver a report.
“I don’t know what he is afraid of,” she said. “He said he is a private individual, but he has the airs of a bureaucratic official so big that not even his superior Mrs Lai [Shin-yuan] can make him come to the committee.”
Had Chiang dared to adopt such a belligerent approach at the negotiation table, the public would have praised his courage, she said.
“But judging from his previous performance, he has proved himself to be someone who is afraid to risk his neck and an opportunist who only pays attention to personal interests and toadying up to China,” she said. “I feel sorry for him.”
Chiu said she didn’t know why Chiang did not attend the meeting.
Chiang later told reporters he did not participate in the negotiations of cross-strait talks and secondly, he simply followed precedents.
Although Chiang did not say why he did not attend the committee meeting, it turned out that he was doing interviews with the Chinese-language United Evening News and ERA News in the morning and briefing the media about the upcoming cross-strait meeting in the afternoon.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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