The Philippines’ decision to send 14 Taiwanese fraud suspects to China for trial was made in observance of Manila’s “one China” policy, Philippine Presidential Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr said yesterday.
Ochoa’s remarks in an interview on DZMM Radio in the Philippines were the first official comment from the Presidential Office in Manila since a dispute broke out on Feb. 2 between Taiwan and the Philippines over Manila’s deportation of 14 Taiwanese to China that same day.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded last night to Ochoa’s remarks with a statement that said Taiwan’s understanding of the Philippines’ “one China policy” was that it was a policy, not a law, and that any country should have its foreign policy based in accordance with its laws.
In line with the Philippines’ immigration law, the Taiwanese should have been deported to Taiwan, not China, the ministry said.
Earlier yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said the government was seeking talks with several Southeast Asian countries about the possibility of a joint effort to combat cross-border crime.
In an interview with the Central News Agency, Yang said incidents of Chinese and Taiwanese working together to defraud people in China and Taiwan have occurred not only in the Philippines, but in other Southeast Asian countries as well.
Apart from telephone and Internet fraud, cross-border drug trafficking and arms smuggling are also a problem, he said.
“We need to build a mechanism for cooperation to combat international crime,” he said.
The foreign ministry and the Ministry of Justice will draft a proposal on talking with Southeast Asian countries on combating cross-border crime, Yang said.
Yang also said he would summon Antonio Basilio, head of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, as soon as Representative to Manila Donald Lee (李傳通) returned from to Taipei yesterday.
The foreign ministry has called in Basilio and his deputies three times over the past week to lodge protests over what it said was the Philippines’ disregard for Taiwan’s jurisdiction over the Taiwanese deported to China.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) accused Lee of neglecting his duty.
Tsai said the Taiwanese were arrested by Philippine authorities in late December and Lee had 38 days to negotiate with Manila before they were deported to China. However, according to information he received from Taiwanese businesspeople in the Philippines, Lee played golf many times during that period, Tsai said.
“It was a lie when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Lee claimed that they had done their best to deal with Manila over this matter,” Tsai said.
Some of the parents of the Taiwanese suspects told a press conference yesterday that they hoped their offspring could be tried by Taiwanese courts, not Chinese.
Accompanied by DPP lawmakers, the mother of one deportees said her son should be punished if he has “done something wrong, but I hope he can be tried here in Taiwan, so that I can at least see him.”
The father of another suspect apologized for his son “upsetting the government and society.” He said he hoped his son would be returned to Taiwan for trial because he did not know how trials were conducted in China.
Another parent said he did not know where his son was because the foreign ministry had not yet contacted him or his family, and he had only learned about the deportation from TV reports.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
This story has been updated since it was first printed.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS