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.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
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.
RSS