Local labor rights groups staged a demonstration in Taipei yesterday against what they said was the illegal import of Chinese workers by electronics manufacturers in Taiwan.
According to the groups, Chinese workers were brought to Taiwan under the guise of being highly skilled professionals, who are -legally allowed to stay in Taiwan for extended periods, but were discovered working in factories operated by Young Fast Optoelectronics Co, ASE Group and AU Optronics Corp.
Chu Cheng-chi (朱政麒), a spokesman for the protesters, said such illegal activities could be behind the sharp increase in Chinese businesspeople and highly skilled professionals visiting Taiwan in recent years.
Citing statistics from the -National Immigration Agency, Chu said 180,000 applications by Chinese businesspeople and professionals to visit Taiwan were approved last year, up from 90,000 the previous year. As of August, more than 160,000 such applications had been -approved, with the total number expected to top 200,000 by the end of this year, Chu said.
He said the situation, if proven true, would run counter to the government’s promise “not to open Taiwan to Chinese laborers,” and he demanded that the agency and the Council of Labor Affairs investigate the matter.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine reported on Wednesday that the practice was especially widespread among major electronics manufacturers that have a strong commercial presence in China. The allegations have prompted opposition lawmakers to urge the -government to crack down on -companies using Chinese labor in Taiwan under false pretenses.
Speaking in an interpellation on the legislative floor on Friday, Council of Labor Affairs Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said that the council had never issued any work permits to citizens of the People’s Republic of China, as stipulated by the Act Governing Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).
According to Article 95 of the act, introducing workers from China into Taiwan would require approval by the Legislative Yuan, Wang said.
Addressing the issue at the same session, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) suggested that companies or organizations inviting Chinese citizens to Taiwan for training should have them wear special vests to prevent people from “trying to pass fish eyes for pearls.”
He added that Taiwan would not allow Chinese citizens to enter Taiwan for employment under the guise of receiving training or attending courses.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS