Chen blames China for deaths

 

HUMAN SMUGGLING: The president said that Beijing should take responsibility for the deaths of six women who were trying to escape from China to Taiwan

 

By Chang Yun-Ping

STAFF REPORTER

 

President Chen Shui-bian yesterday said Beijing should shoulder responsibility for the drowning deaths of six Chinese women who were thrown into the sea by Taiwanese smugglers on Tuesday.

 

"Although the human traffickers, boat owners and pimps should be responsible for the incident, the authorities in Beijing should take most of the responsibility, and China's leaders cannot escape it," Chen said while receiving a group of Australian lawmakers.

 

Smugglers threw 26 Chinese women overboard early on Tuesday near Tunghsiao, Miaoli County, as they tried to escape pursuing coast guard boats.

 

Chen said the women were "using their feet to vote" against the Chinese government by risking their lives to get to Taiwan.

 

"What Beijing should endeavor to do is prevent its nationals from escaping to Taiwan, instead of protesting against Taiwan's participation in the international community, including blocking Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Organization and demanding its diplomatic allies boycott ROC passports with the word `Taiwan' on the cover," he said.

 

"It's really bewildering. What China should care about is protecting human lives and the property of its people, but what it actually does is unceasingly oppress Taiwan's international participation," the president said.

 

The DPP yesterday condemned the brutality of the smugglers but also urged the Chinese government to step up measures to prevent illegal immigration to Taiwan.

 

"China has been reluctant to curb rampant human trafficking and sometimes simply turns a blind eye to the situation," said Cheng Wen-tsan, deputy director of the DPP's Department of Information and Culture.

 

Cheng said China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait has also been procrastinating over demands by its counterpart in Taiwan, the Straits Exchange Foundation, to discus how illegal Chinese immigrants are repatriated. He said this was an example of China's indifference toward the issue that ultimately led to this latest tragedy.

 

The 20 women rescued yesterday are being cared for at the Coast Guard Administration's branch office in Lukang, Changhua County, from where they will be deported to China.

Eleven illegal immigrants from China get off a bus at a temporary shelter in Lukang yesterday morning. They were arrested after smugglers threw them into the sea near Tunghsiao, Miaoli County, on Tuesday.

 

The four Taiwanese smugglers -- Yeh Tien-sheng, Tseng Chung-ming, Wang Chung-hsing and Ko Ching-song -- are being held at Miaoli Prosecutors' Office. Prosecutors said they could face murder charges.

 

The Coast Guard Administration discovered the smugglers on Tuesday morning and gave chase. The smugglers then forced the women into the sea even though some of them protested that they could not swim.

 

In related news yesterday, the police caught another 13 Chinese women being smuggled into Taiwan.

 

Illegal immigration is common along the west coast because its sandy beaches make covert landings easy.

 

 

Chinese spouses to undergo interview

 

SCREENING MECHANISM: Premier Yu Shyi-kun is looking for ways to deal with illegal immigration and called on Beijing to avoid letting politics get in the way of dialogue

 

By Ko Shu-ling

STAFF REPORTER

 

Until an immigration office is established to handle the rampant smuggling of Chinese women, Chinese nationals married to Taiwanese spouses have to undergo interviews before being allowed to enter the country, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday.

 

Yu also called on Beijing to face the illegal immigration problem and start cross-strait dialogues.

 

"Don't boycott the problem because of any political reasons, because it's not only a social problem but also a human-rights issue," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung quoted Yu as saying.

 

"It's tantamount to conniving to commit a crime or even helping it along if China keeps avoiding the problem," he said.

 

Yu spoke yesterday morning during the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting in response to the deaths of six illegal Chinese immigrants on Tuesday.

 

Six of 26 Chinese women aboard a Taiwanese boat died after they were all forced to jump off the boat in waters off Miaoli County while being chased by the coast guard.

 

Statistics show the number of illegal female Chinese immigrants has increased more than tenfold over the past four years. While women smuggled from China made up 7 percent of the total number of illegal Chinese immigrants, the figure rocketed to 73.3 percent as of July this year.

 

Vowing to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again, Yu yesterday instructed Minister without Portfolio Yeh Jiunn-rong to expedite the establishment of a screening mechanism in which Chinese nationals married to Taiwanese have to pass personal interviews before being allowing to enter the country.

"To solve the problem once and for all, though, an immigration office has to be set up to handle such thorny problems as fake marriages, shelters and deportation," Yu said.

 

Statistics show that there are more than 190,000 Chinese nationals married to Taiwanese citizens, many of whom fake their marriage to become prostitutes.

 

Yu asked Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen to work with the Red Cross and Straits Exchange Foundation to negotiate with China about increasing the frequency of transporting illegal Chinese immigrants back home.

 

Illegal immigrants are transported back to China once a month. The government hopes to increase this to once every 20 days.

 

Although the nation gets about 1,500 to 2,000 illegal immigrants a year, only about 150 people a month, or 1,800 a year, are returned to China.

 

To solve the problem of insufficient accommodation for illegal immigrants, Yu asked Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien to present short- and long-term improvement plans and timetables, and to carry out these plans as soon as possible.

 

There is only one shelter for illegal immigrants, in Hsinchu, that is reserved for women. As of the end of July, the facility had 850 residents, most of whom had been there for more than six months. A larger facility is scheduled to open in December 2008.

　

In addition to requesting the agencies concerned to investigate Tuesday's case, Yu yesterday instructed Cabinet Secretary-General Liu Shih-fang to supervise the intensified investigation of cross-strait human trafficking syndicates.

 

The Coast Guard Administration will also form a task force with the National Police Administration to catch leaders of the smuggling rings.

 

Nation must be assertive, says think tank head

 

Edwin Feulner, president of the Washington-based think tank the Heritage Foundation, believes the six-party talks in Beijing on the North Korean nuclear crisis will not harm Taiwan's relationship with the US. Feulner, in Taipei on a visit, shared his views with `Taipei Times' reporter Melody Chen on how Taiwan should react to China's growing economic might and deeper political involvement in regional diplomacy

 

"You can't always count on the US umbrella to protect you when it starts to rain. "－ Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation

 

Taipei Times: How should Taiwan respond if China-US ties become closer as a result of the success of the six-party negotiations on the North Korean arms crisis? The nuclear crisis has, in a way, boosted China's relationship with the US. Does it mean the US will be more conciliatory toward China in handling cross-strait relations to repay Beijing for its help in resolving the crisis?

 

Edwin Feulner: The six-party talks in Beijing are significant because you have five countries who have a fundamental common interest in stopping North Korea from developing weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons in particular.

 

Beyond that, though, each of these five countries has a different set of reasons why they are there.

 

The fact that these five countries have come together to say to North Korea that it has to behave like a responsible member in the international community is very significant. The US is pleased that China and Russia are part of the talks.

 

I do worry that some people in the US government might think the fact that the US and China are on the same side in this issue means that somehow we can consider China our ally across the board. I don't believe that. My colleagues don't believe that. We are there for a specific purpose, which is to bring stability and to eliminate the prospect of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

 

I have to say there are areas where we can work with China, like these talks and trade issues. There are areas, however, where it is China that has to behave like a responsible member of the international community.

That means it can't let the People's Liberation Army sustain its arms build-up across the Taiwan Strait. It is not in our interest, let alone Taiwan's interest.

 

I will continue to stress that when you find areas of agreement with other countries, that doesn't mean you agree across the board.

 

Are there people in Washington who would like to use this [the talks] as a reason to build a closer political relationship between the US and China? Yes.

 

I think if China were to give indications that it would reduce the number of missiles across the Taiwan Strait, instead of increasing them by redeploying some of its military assets away from the Taiwan Strait, that would be a much more hopeful sign than what they are doing.