A new alliance launched in Taipei on Tuesday last week has reportedly compiled a list of more than 11,000 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials it says should be barred from visiting Taiwan for the role they have played in human rights abuses in China.
The “No CCP Villain International Alliance” (www.noccpvillain.org), which comprises groups such as the Victims of Investment in China Association (VICA), the Taiwan Friends of Tibet and the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group, as well as human rights activists and individuals who were persecuted by Chinese authorities, has handed its list to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃), who is expected to pass it on to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Epoch Times reported on Monday.
The legislature passed a resolution in early December barring known CCP human rights abusers entry into Taiwan. The resolution, co-introduced by Chen and adopted by parties on both sides of the aisle, requires government authorities — including the MAC and the NIA — to deny Chinese officials who are known to have been involved in human rights abuses entry into Taiwan.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Greater Kaohsiung and Chiayi, as well as Changhua, Hualien, Miaoli and Yunlin counties, have adopted similar, albeit separate, resolutions.
Despite the measures, later that month Beijing Deputy Mayor Ji Lin (吉林) was allowed to visit the country despite claims by rights organizations that he had played a key role in the repression of Falun Gong practitioners since 1998.
According to the Epoch Times, included among the 11,000-plus names are Liaoning Governor Chen Zhenggao (陳政高), who arrived in Taiwan for a visit on Tuesday, and Anhui Governor Wang Sanyun (王三運), who intends to visit in April. Both Chen Zhenggao and Wang have been accused by the Falun Gong of participating in or facilitating the persecution of its followers.
“The Alliance hopes the government will make public who it invites and its reviewing process on these people,” Taiwan Friends of Tibet chairwoman Chow Mei-li (周美里) told the paper. “The government should consider the list we have provided and refuse entry to those officials who violate human rights.”
Although the alliance is based in Taipei, Teresa Chu (朱婉琪), a spokesperson for the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group and an attorney, said its scope was global and “belongs to the Chinese people around the world and will exist till the day the CCP stops suppressing the human rights of people in China.”
In addition to the persecution of Chinese rights activists, Falun Gong practitioners and Tibetans, the alliance also takes into consideration abuse by the CCP against China-based Taiwanese businesspeople.
Addressing a conference on cross-strait relations on Tuesday, Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), director of National Chengchi University’s Prediction Market Center, said the individual safety of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople continued to deteriorate while cross-strait relations were ostensibly improving amid warming ties.
VICA president William Kao (高為邦), whose factory in China was looted by unidentified men in 1999, and who left China in 2001 after his requests for help from Chinese authorities were ignored, was quoted by the Epoch Times as saying that information from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office showed that every year, 2,000 business investors from Taiwan were victimized in China, or more than 40,000 in the past two decades. Expropriation of property, jailing and court cases in violation of due process are among the crimes committed against Taiwanese in China, the paper said.
Kao said that as many cases likely went unreported, the total number probably amounted to 100,000, adding that in the past 20 years, not a single Chinese official had been punished for actions targetting Taiwanese businesspeople.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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