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Chinese security chief’s visit kept
secret
IN THE SHADOWSChen Zhimin met with officials from the
ministries of justice and the interior and MAC, but their names and what they
discussed have not been disclosed
By Vincent Y. Chao, Ko Shu-ling / J. Michael
Cole and Shih Hsiu-chuan /STAFF REPORTERS
“We had a tacit understanding with [China] … we weren’t
going to release this trip to the media because of the upcoming [November]
elections－Hsu Jui-shan, chief administrator of the Criminal Investigation Bureau
A visit to Taiwan by Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security Chen Zhimin (陳智敏)
and his delegation earlier this month was shrouded in secrecy and intentionally
unpublicized, even as talks were held with senior government officials, an
investigation by the Taipei Times showed yesterday.
Chen, who is believed to be the second-highest-ranking Chinese official to visit
the nation in the past 12 years in an official capacity, was in Taipei from
Sept. 13 through Sept. 18 and met representatives from the Ministry of the
Interior, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Coast Guard Administration (CGA)
and the Ministry of Justice.
The Taipei Times has learned that the trip’s organizers, the National Police
Agency (NPA) and Chinese authorities, covered up the visit. It was only made
public on Monday afternoon, more than a week after it concluded.
An NPA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the talks
were secretive, adding that the agency had purposefully played down the
delegation’s trip. The official said specific details of the visit would not be
made public.
While the source confirmed that the 17 members of Chen’s entourage were above
the deputy chief and vice director level, the NPA did not have the authority to
release their names.
This could be the first time in the nation’s history that a visit by senior
Chinese officials was covered up by Taiwan’s own government agencies.
The NPA released a short statement on the visit on Monday after the Central News
Agency and the Chinese state-run China News broke the story.
Hsu Jui-shan (許瑞山), chief administrator of the Criminal Investigation Bureau,
which organized the delegation’s itinerary, said the information was withheld
because of Chen’s sensitive post, which gave his trip political ramifications.
“We had a tacit understanding with [China] … we weren’t going to release this
trip to the media because of the upcoming [November] elections,” he said. “The
request [for this] came from China, and as the host, we accepted.”
According to an official account of the trip, Chen, who is
also the vice chairman of the Police Association of China, was visiting to
promote cross-strait cooperation between police agencies and explore
possibilities for greater judicial collaboration.
The NPA statement said an agreement was reached on six points, including an
increase in cross-strait police exchanges, more communication on extradition and
additional cooperation on security and anti-terrorism.
However, the NPA statement did not mention that Chen also met the vice ministers
of justice, top CGA staff and a vice chairperson at MAC, Hsu said.
The exact names of Chen’s contacts could not be confirmed.
It is understood that unlike Chinese Minister of Culture Cai Wu (蔡武), who
visited earlier this month under his unofficial title as honorary chairman of
the China Friendship Association of Cultural Circles, Chen was here in his
official capacity.
Documents from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security show that Chen plays an
important role in Beijing’s security apparatus, having held important exchanges
with his counterparts in Hong Kong and Macau, a possible reason why he was
chosen to lead the delegation to Taiwan.
Last year, he traveled to southern China, where he met with police chiefs from
Hong Kong and Macau and promised greater cooperation in training and fighting
crime. He has also met previously with the director of MAC’s legal department,
Wu Mei-hung (吳美紅).
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers told the Taipei Times that the
legislature had not been informed of Chen’s visit and said that as a democracy,
the government had an obligation to let the public know the details of its
cross-strait negotiations.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said that if evidence of a cover-up were
found, it would confirm widespread fears that the government was engaged in
secret negotiations with China.
“Our concern is that this will become the norm,” he said. “There was no reason
why the information could not have been released, and their excuses for covering
it up are not good enough.”
DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said the visit violated
public accountability and said the specific nature of Chen’s talks should be
made public.
“It’s a worrying trend ... these new types of secret exchanges are extremely
harmful to Taiwan,” she said.
In a telephone interview, former MAC chief Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said the more the
authorities tried to keep such visits secret, the more suspicious the public
would become.
“It’s OK if the PSB [Public Security Bureau] is here in Taiwan to discuss joint
crime fighting,” he said. “In fact, when the DPP was in power, we tried to work
with the People’s Republic of China on that issue and took pride in those
efforts.”
“Why hide it from the public, then?” he said, adding that if the discussions
between the Chinese delegation and Taiwanese officials turned to such topics as
combating “terrorism” — which in certain Chinese circles can be construed as
including “separatism” — then such visits would be far more alarming.
The Presidential Office and the National Security Council refused to comment for
this report, while the MAC described the visit as “nothing special.”
Tsai Ji-ru (蔡志儒), senior specialist in the council’s legal department, said such
exchanges had become the norm since the two sides signed an agreement on mutual
judicial assistance and cross-strait cooperation to fight crime in June last
year.
Senior Taiwanese judicial officials have also visited China since the signing of
the accord, he said.
Tsai said he did not know whether the two sides had agreed to wait until Chen
had returned to China to make public the visit, because the NPA had organized
the trip.
Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠) and
Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) applauded the visit, saying it would facilitate implementation
of cross-strait agreements on crime-fighting and judicial cooperation.
Tsao, who was involved in signing the Kinmen Agreement 20 years ago — the first
agreement dealing with cross-strait affairs to facilitate the bilateral
repatriation of stowaways and illegal immigrants — said communications between
officials from the two sides would help establish mutual trust.
Shrugging off criticism of the secrecy surrounding the visit,
Tsao said examining how cross-strait agreements on crime prevention were
implemented “was much more important” than whether Chen’s activities here were
made public.
Lo said contacts between high-level officials from the two sides should not
always be held “in the back room,” adding that there should be a certain degree
of institutionalized transparency in their interactions.
The Executive Yuan said the main purpose of Chen’s visit was to allow senior
police officials to exchange ideas on how to reinforce cross-strait cooperation
since the Agreement on Jointly Cracking Down on Crime and Mutual Legal
Assistance Across the Strait (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議) was signed in May last year.
The government was unable to reveal the contents of the meetings because their
discussions concerned ongoing investigations, it said.
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