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.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Authorities yesterday elaborated on the rules governing Employment Gold Cards after a US cardholder was barred from entering Taiwan for six years after working without a permit during a 2023 visit. American YouTuber LeLe Farley was barred after already being approved for an Employment Gold Card, he said in a video published on his channel on Saturday. Farley, who has more than 420,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, was approved for his Gold Card last month, but was told at a check-in counter at the Los Angeles International Airport that he could not enter Taiwan. That was because he previously participated in two
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