The Kaohsiung City Council recently passed a motion demanding that the city government and private organizations not be allowed to invite to the city Chinese officials who have been accused of violating human rights. The motion included making the same suggestion to the central government, asking it to refuse such officials entry to Taiwan.
With Chinese officials increasingly leading delegations to Taiwan, Kaohsiung City Councilor Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suggested that Chinese officials who have violated human rights should be refused entry to the country.
The motion was supported by councilors from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps last week and it has now been submitted to the Mainland Affairs Council, the National Immigration Agency and the Kaohsiung City Government.
Kang said that because Guangdong Province Governor Huang Huahua (黃華華), Shaanxi Province Vice Governor and Acting Governor Zhao Zhengyong (趙正永), State Administration of Religious Affairs Director Wang Zuoan (王作安) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Deputy Secretary of Hubei Province Yang Song (楊松) all have allegedly participated in China’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan had filed a criminal lawsuit with the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors’ Office against them when they visited Taiwan.
The central government should investigate the human rights record of these Chinese officials when checking their applications to enter Taiwan, Kang said.
Adding that Kaohsiung City is a modern metropolis that protects human rights, Kang said both the city and private organizations should therefore highlight the universality of human rights. If it is discovered that Chinese officials planning to visit Kaohsiung have a track record of violating human rights or if they have been charged and are being tried in court, such officials should not be invited, welcomed or given any support, she said.
While Falun Gong practitioners are suffering heavy persecution by the CCP, the motion is not aimed at pleasing the Falun Gong; no one who is guilty of persecuting anyone else should be welcomed to Kaohsiung, she said.
“I am very excited over the fact that the motion was unanimously passed by both the pan-green and pan-blue camps,” Kang added.
DPP Kaohsiung City Councilor Chou Lin-wen (周玲玟) said that while China was important to the global economy, it ignores human rights and democracy.
“Kaohsiung is a friendly city but many people don’t know very much about CCP persecution and that is why it is necessary to ask the central government to control these issues,” she said.
Expressing a wish that every tourist area in Taiwan reveal the truth to Chinese tourists, she added: “Only by traveling to Taiwan will they be able to see the persecution that underlies the Chinese economy.”
Falun Dafa in Taiwan welcomed the motion and called on each level of government to take a close look at the issue.
Cheng Chi-mei (鄭其美), a representative of the movement, said it was shameful to see Chinese officials coming to Taiwan shaking hands with Taiwanese and receiving expensive gifts with blood on their hands.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat