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Most Taiwanese
imprisoned in China not sent back
By Su Yung-yao and Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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.
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