While President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has lauded the effects of an agreement on mutual judicial assistance between Taiwan and China following the release on Saturday of Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner Bruce Chung (鐘鼎邦) by Chinese authorities, only six out of the more than 1,000 Taiwanese convicted and sentenced in China have been transferred back to the country in the past three years, government statistics show.
According to the latest statistics by the Ministry of Justice, since the signing of the Agreement on Joint Cross-Strait Crime Fighting and Mutual Judicial Assistance by Taiwan and China in April 2009, the government has requested the return of 334 of more than 1,000 Taiwanese who are currently serving sentences in China.
However, only six have been handed over to Taiwan’s judicial system, while the extraditions of the rest are still “underway,” the statistics show.
The agreement states in its preface that both parties agree to render assistance in deporting across the Taiwan Strait transgressors who have been convicted of a civil or criminal offense.
To avoid any wrongful prosecution, the agreement affords judicial authorities from both sides of the Strait a chance to review the rulings handed down upon their respective citizens as well as all legal documents on the investigations launched by the other side of the Strait into those who have been pronounced guilty.
Despite these promises, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said during a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee last year that as of the beginning of this year, only one Taiwanese convicted in China was deported back to Taiwan, an alarming figure that has not improved in spite of Lai’s continued negotiations with her counterparts in China in the past three years.
An unidentified source familiar with China’s judicial system said that Chung, who was detained for more than 50 days on allegations that he had compromised China’s national security, was only released and deported back to Taiwan as the result of relentless petitions by Taiwanese of all walks of society.
Widespread media attention to Chung’s detention during the eighth round of cross-strait talks between Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) and Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) last week also contributed to Chung’s release, the source said.
The source said that without such efforts and media coverage in Taiwan, Chung would most likely be sentenced to prison and become another name on a long list waiting for deportation to Taiwan.
Meanwhile, of the 640 wanted Taiwanese fugitives in China, 203 have been returned to Taiwan since the agreement was signed, statistics have shown.
However, a number of Taiwan’s most-wanted fugitives who fled to China — including former Tuntex Group chairman Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪), former legislative speaker Liu Sung-pan (劉松藩), former Kuangsan Enterprise Group president Tseng Cheng-jen (曾正仁) and former Kaohsiung Council speaker Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄) — are still at large.
On the other hand, Taiwan has captured and deported five out of seven — or 71 percent of — of Chinese fugitives in Taiwan who are wanted across the Strait.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and