Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/17
By: Tai Ya-chen and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, April 17 (CNA) Premier Simon Chang (張善政) has vowed to proactively

look into overseas telecommunications fraud cases involving Taiwanese suspects and Chinese victims and said he hopes a long-standing systematic model can be established to deal with similar cases through negotiations with China, Executive Yuan Spokesman Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said Sunday.

Chang made the remarks during an inter-ministerial meeting on how to best manage similar cases after Malaysia deported 20 Taiwanese implicated in fraud back to Taiwan on Friday, following Kenya’s extradition of 45 Taiwanese to China last week over suspected telecom fraud.

In addition to the cases in Kenya and Malaysia, there are Taiwanese suspected of transnational telecom fraud targeting Chinese victims being held by police in Indonesia, Egypt and South Korea. Therefore, Chang hopes a systematic model can be created through negotiations between Taiwan and China, according to Sun.     [FULL  STORY]

 

Forbes
Date: APR 13, 2016
Ralph Jennings , CONTRIBUTOR

Taiwan isn’t just mad this week at its China, an old political rival that had been

spared a lot of wrath over the past eight years in the interest of building trust. It’s using diplomatic and legal tools to push Beijing for the release of 45 Taiwanese citizens who were deported from Kenya this month – to China rather than home, hence the outrage. It rang up a hotline Tuesday to accuse China of an international crime, abduction, and has prepared to send a delegation. It also intends to sue three government agencies in Kenya, which worked with China to get the
Taiwanese out after they were suspected of telephone fraud. China, Taiwan says, should have consulted it according to a 2011 agreement to team up on crime-busting issues.

China happens to claim sovereignty over Taiwan, which has been self-ruled since the 1960s. And China happens to be a globally sought-after economy of more than $10 trillion, a reason it has 170 diplomatic allies compared to Taiwan’s 22. China calls shots whenever facing Taiwan over an international issue and the Kenya case was no different. Beijing also doesn’t like Taiwan’s president-elect, so it feels less compelled to act nice as it has since 2008 under a more sympathetic president.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: April 14, 2016

2The government voiced April 13 a strong protest over the detention and

forcible deportation of Republic of China (Taiwan) nationals to mainland China by the Kenyan police, describing the actions as serious human rights violation that have hurt the feelings of the people of Taiwan and severely affected cross-strait relations.

The incident occurred following the acquittal of 23 ROC nationals by a Kenyan district court on telecoms fraud charges. The group, ordered to leave the West African country in 21 days, was detained for 24 hours after attempting to collect their passports at Kilimani police station near the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

Eight of the 23 were deported April 8 to mainland China. The remaining 15, along with 22 other ROC nationals involved in a separate telecoms fraud case, were deported after police used tear gas to force them out of the station. “These measures are against the will of the 45 ROC nationals and we demand a reasonable explanation from the Kenyan government,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

President Ma Ying-jeou called on Beijing to return the ROC nationals to Taiwan and make sure forcible deportations to mainland China never take place again. This position is shared by President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, who said Taiwan’s jurisdiction should be respected.     [FULL  STORY]

JOINT CRIME-FIGHTING:Chinese officials have said that scams committed by Taiwanese cost more than 10 billion yuan annually and inflict great suffering

Taipei Times
Date: , Apr 15, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) yesterday urged China

to present concrete evidence backing figures it released to demonstrate the prevalence of Taiwanese-orchestrated telecommunications fraud, while calling for a new round of negotiations on a cross-strait pact to jointly fight crime.

Hsia made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee, which invited him speak and answer questions about Kenya’s deportation of 45 Taiwanese from Nairobi to Beijing on Friday last week and on Tuesday.

“I have seen the frightening numbers of [telecom scam] victims published by Chinese authorities. However, we hope they can present some evidence to back the figures so that they are not just conjecture,” Hsia said.

China is also urged to show evidence that its forcible seizure of the Taiwanese conformed with procedural justice, Hsia said.     [FULL  STORY]

The New York Times
Date: April 12, 2016
By: JEFFREY GET0TLEMAN and AUSTIN RAMZY

Video shows a group of Taiwanese citizens who barricaded themselves from Kenyan police officers who aimed to deport them to China. By MRS. LIU, VIA REUTERS on Publish Date April 12, 2016.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Usually prisoners want to get out of jail. But on Tuesday, a group of Taiwanese citizens did all they could to stay in — barricading themselves in a small cell as Kenyan police officers tried to storm in with assault rifles.

But the attempt failed, and the officers dragged the prisoners out — Taiwanese officials say after using tear gas, which Kenyan officials deny — and put them on a plane not for home, but for mainland China

.

A video circulating on the Internet of the encounter shows a group of young men bracing themselves against a prison door to try to keep the Kenyan officers out. “Sir! We are Taiwan people, Taiwan people!” one of them yells.

The episode outraged Taiwanese officials, who accused Kenya of violating international law and trying to curry favor with China, which views the self-governed island as part of its territory.

This would not be the first time an African nation did something contentious to please China, the new heavyweight on the continent. Zambia, South Africa and others have bent over backward — often provoking the ire of their own people — to keep China happy.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-04-12
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia phoned his Chinese counterpart, Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun, Tuesday evening to discuss the deportation of dozens of Taiwanese citizens from Kenya to China, reports said.

An estimated 45 Taiwanese nationals had been found not guilty by a court in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, but instead of expelling them to Taiwan, the authorities in the African country were planning to put all of them on flights to China. Eight were reportedly already being held in Beijing.

Taiwan’s government said earlier Tuesday that it wanted to send an envoy to China to lodge a protest and work on the release of the Taiwanese citizens.

The hotline between the MAC and the TAO was only installed last year to be used in emergency situations. This was reportedly the first time the two ministers themselves used it.     [FULL  STORY]

The National Interest
Date: April 10, 2016
By: Robert Beckhusen

The 240-millimeter M1 howitzer, or “Black Dragon,” was the heaviest piece of field artillery the U.S. Army deployed in World War II. The huge guns smashed the Axis Powers’ concrete fortifications in Europe to rubble, and blasted Chinese mountain bunkers during the Korean War.

“There was little call for the type to be employed whenever the fighting was fluid as it took too long to emplace the weapons or get them out of action, but when they were used the heavy 163.3 kg (360-lb) high explosive shells were devastating weapons,” Chris Bishop wrote in the exhaustive Complete Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II.

The Army retired them in the 1950s. And that would have been the end of the story, were it not for Taiwan burying them deep inside forts on the Kinmen and Matsu islands a short hop from the Chinese mainland. From Kinmen, the Black Dragon’s 14-mile range can reach Xiamen, a city of five million people along China’s southeast coast.

The message — intimidation. Deterrence. Don’t invade.     [SOURCE]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/11
By: Tai Ya-chen and Jay Chen

Taipei, April 11 (CNA) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Monday demanded an immediate repatriation of eight Taiwan nationals sent to China from Kenya after they had been acquitted of phone fraud in Nairobi earlier this month.

In announcing the news of the deportation, which occurred on April 8, the ministry expressed its “serious protest” against the “uncivilized act of extrajudicial abduction” which represents a “gross violation of basic human rights.”

The eight persons were put on a Chinese airliner in Nairobi and flown to China despite a court order that they be handed back to the Kenyan police authorities pending a further hearing.

They were among 23 Taiwanese accused of being members of a fraud ring which was busted toward the end of last year. A total of 77 Chinese and Taiwanese were arrested and charged with illegal entry and telecommunications fraud, according to MOFA.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/10
By: Timothy Huang and Christie Chen

New York, April 9 (CNA) The United States should continue to inform

Beijing that cross-Taiwan Strait relations can only be pursued in the absence of threat or use of force, according to a report released by a U.S. non-profit policy organization.

While recent remarks by President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) indicated a desire to work constructively with China, some heightened tensions can be expected in the run-up to her May 20 inauguration, Stephen M. Young, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), wrote in the report.

The report, titled “Building a Regional Order in East Asia: Community, Competition, Conflict,” was released at the end of March by the New York-based National Committee on American Foreign Policy, an organization dedicated to the resolution of conflicts that threaten U.S. interests.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/03
By: Yang Ssu-jui and Christie Chen

Taipei, April 3 (CNA) A cross-Taiwan Strait deal to export Taiwanese milkfish to China has

been suspended this year, as chilly weather in Taiwan this winter caused a decrease in milkfish production, according to the Tainan City Milkfish Aquaculture Association.

In 2011, the association and Taiwan’s Shinejia Foods Co. signed a deal with China’s Shanghai Fisheries General Corp. (Group), and later with China’s Haikui Seafood Group, to supply milkfish to Chinese buyers.

Due to the cold winter this year, however, prices for 5-inch milkfish fingerlings have tripled to NT$16 (US$0.49) per fingerling from NT$5 each last year, said Wang Wen-tsung (王文宗), head of the Tainan City Milkfish Aquaculture Association and chairman of Shinejia Foods Co.

has not fared as well as expected in the Chinese market, Wang said.     [FULL  STORY]