MAC appeals to the Beijing authorities to jointly promote a crime- fighting mechanism
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) emphasized that whether or not both sides of the Taiwan Strait can jointly crack down on crime in a truly effective manner is an issue of high concern to all parties. Moreover, in order to truly achieve the effect of fighting and deterring crime, it is imperative that the responsible agencies with government authority on both sides should substantively engage in the process and play the leading role. The MAC indicated that both sides can achieve the objective of joint crackdown on crime, and not disappoint the expectations of various sectors, only if the Beijing authorities are able to show sincerity and actively face up to this issue by holding discussions with Taiwan on replacing the current approach to handling issues of liaison and assistance on a case-by-case basis with an approach based on an institutionalized mechanism.
The MAC stated that after two major incidents—one that involved a security guard Lee Han-yang, who was suspected of the theft of NT$56 million from an armored car owned by Group 4 Securicor-Taiwan and another involving an embezzlement scandal committed by executives of the Rebar Group, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) was immediately authorized by government agencies to request in writing that the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) forward relevant messages to the authorities concerned in China. However, the Chinese authorities made no response and even allowed Rebar Group founder Wang You-theng, the main suspect in the Rebar case, to leave China at his ease. After Taiwan issued a warrant for the arrest of Wang and other suspects on January 15, 2007, the SEF immediately sent a letter informing ARATS of this matter. The MAC indicated that Taiwan has always taken initiative as well as an active attitude and approach toward cases involving criminal elements seeking to exploit the special situation across the Strait as a cover for criminal activity. The MAC emphasized that Taiwan also has taken note that, as compared to its past responses, China adopted a more active approach and provided faster assistance in the arrest, arrest announcement, and repatriation of the suspects in the Group 4 Securicor-Taiwan heist case. However, the Chinese authorities have not attached equal importance to the case involving Wang You-theng and his wife, nor have they responded, in a similarly active and rapid manner as in dealing with heist case, to Taiwan’s request for assistance in arresting and repatriating Wang and his wife as well as nearly 500 criminals or criminal suspects (including Chen You-hao, Tseng Cheng-jen, Wu Tse-yuan, Chang Wan-li, and Chu An-hsiung, and other major economic criminals) when the responsible authorities in Taiwan made such request through the SEF. This has made the Taiwanese people unable to believe that China is truly sincere or determined to crack down on crime. On the contrary, they feel that the Chinese authorities are intentionally harboring criminals from Taiwan. If the Chinese authorities intend to address the discontent of the Taiwanese people on this point, they should not make excuses for shirking responsibility and instead actively handle such matters.
The MAC solemnly indicated that in the past, both sides across the Strait ever broadly exchanged views several times on jointly cracking down on crime through the channel between the SEF and ARATS. Over recent years, the authorities in charge of maintaining social order respectively in Taiwan and China have successfully cooperated with each other in handling several individual cases. At a press conference held today, the Taiwan Affairs Office publicly affirmed the effective operations of the SEF-ARATS channel. The MAC indicated that this proves the SEF and ARATS can continue to develop their function as a bridge on issues of joint crackdown on crime. From the perspective of Taiwan, the SEF has never reduced or weakened this function. We hope that the Beijing authorities will promptly strengthen the role of the ARATS and jointly assist the authorities responsible for maintaining social order across the Strait in discussing the establishment of an effective cooperative mechanism for crackdown on crime.