Repatriation deal raises questions
Fourteen Taiwanese alleged fraud suspects, deported from the Philippines to China in early February, are soon to return home to face the music. However, they are not the only ones who should face some intensive questioning.
The Chinese government agreed to hand the 14 over after months of effort to secure their return by Taiwan, the Mainland Affairs Council said late on Thursday. It said the suspects were being returned in accordance with the Agreement on Joint Crime--Fighting and Mutual Legal Assistance Across the Taiwan Strait, which was signed by the Straits Exchange Foundation and Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait in 2009 (but only “referred” to the legislature for lawmakers’ reference, not approval).
However, the low-key nature of the announcement should raise questions about just what kind of groveling went on behind the scenes, especially after Government Information Office Minister Philip Yang (楊永明) quoted Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) as saying the controversy surrounding the 14 should not be labeled an issue of sovereignty. Instead, Wu apparently said that people should be more concerned about crime-fighting efforts because focusing on sovereignty would be “unfavorable for international cooperation in investigating and cracking down on crime.”
So what are people to think about all the administration’s blustering, posturing and pontificating back in February and early March, with demands for an apology from the Philippine government, sanctions imposed against Filipino migrant workers (albeit temporarily) and warnings that Taipei-Manila ties had been severely damaged? Remember President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) agreeing — although with “a heavy heart” and only because “the friendship and cooperation between the Republic of China [ROC] and the Philippines are important” — to meet a Philippine envoy, former senator Manuel Roxas II? Ma told Roxas that the Philippine officials had “lied openly” about the matter and the nation had not behaved the way a democratic country should.
Meanwhile, several legal experts pointed out — in this paper and elsewhere — that while Taiwan could ask China to hand over the 14 Taiwanese suspects, based on Item 6 of the cross-strait crime-fighting pact, it was very unlikely Beijing would accept the possibility of a not-guilty verdict in any trial in Taiwan and so it would be likely to demand that Taiwan agree to several conditions before repatriating the suspects. The Republic of China’s Criminal Code states that a citizen who commits a crime abroad is only liable for prosecution in Taiwan if the offense warrants a jail term of three years or more. China’s Criminal Code, however, covers any criminal act that is committed in China or has consequences in China. After all, Chinese prosecutors do have a long tradition of almost 100 percent conviction rates.
The 14 Taiwanese, and their 10 Chinese codefendents, are suspected of complicity in an international fraud ring both Beijing and Manila said targeted people in China and Hong Kong, as well as Taiwan, and netted the ring an estimated US$20 million. However, the majority of the victims appear to have been Chinese, not Taiwanese.
So just what was discussed in all those cross-strait negotiations on the return of the 14 suspects? What promises were made? So far, the 2009 pact has been used largely to repatriate fugitives wanted by Taiwan to stand trial for crimes committed in Taiwan or those who fled after their convictions to avoid imprisonment. Taiwan appears to be entering new territory with the return of the 14 suspects. Let’s just hope it is not a territory labeled “Taiwan, Province of China.”
Barriers on the path to civil service
In the procedures for the Taiwan Police College’s 30th session of student enrollment, it is plainly written that the second round of exams includes a physical fitness exam and standards for an oral examination. For the physical fitness exam, it stipulates that potential students are not allowed to have tattoos on any part of their body. Among the standards for the oral examination, it says potential students will be excluded and disqualified if they “look improper,” specifically listing pockmarked faces, blemishes, moles, scars or birthmarks larger than 2cm on the neck or above that seriously affect outer appearance.
So people with facial scars look improper and people with tattoos will not pass the physical exam, even if the tattoo is not located in a visible spot on the body or the images or words are inoffensive. However, none of these requirements are relevant to becoming a student at a police college, receiving a police education or even a person’s competency to work as a police officer.
Such restrictions have already gained approval from the Ministry of Education even though they are all forms of discrimination based on physical appearance and facial features. Apparently, a certain sensitivity is lacking in the way education officials perceive “discrimination.”
After students graduate from police school, they have to pass a special examination from the Examination Yuan before they can obtain a position in the police force, even though Article 39 of the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法) requires the Examination Yuan to abolish unfair restrictions against civil servants with disabilities.
Nevertheless, there are still 12 civil service examinations that require physical exams. Besides the restrictions against police officers having tattoos, anyone taking the special examination administered in the Ministry of Justice to become a prosecutor is similarly not allowed to have any “serious facial deformities.” They claim that the restrictions take into consideration the sidelong glances that such deformities would easily attract when a prosecutor collects evidence for forensic investigations.
However, is it really necessary to set such restrictions in an age when cosmetic surgery is so common? And are they not contradicting Article 5 of the Employment Services Act (就業服務法), which states that discrimination against facial features is not allowed? Obviously, all of these restrictions are in serious need of re-evaluation.
In many cases, it is never explained how certain parts of a physical exam are related to a particular position. For example, people with color blindness cannot register to take the civil service special examinations for diplomatic, journalistic and business personnel because when personnel are stationed abroad, they need to be able to drive and chauffeur Taiwanese and foreign VIPs; moreover, color-blind people might also be unable to differentiate the colors of the flag for the county in which they are residing. These are not the central duties of diplomatic personnel, yet the government is still imprudently using bureaucratic regulations to exclude the employment rights of a segment of our citizens.
Judicial personnel, including judges and prosecutors, must take a physical exam and be excluded as incompetent if they have certain disabilities, such as any serious physical impairment, which includes vision worse than 20/200 or hearing loss higher than a 90 decibel hearing level.
The diplomatic games they play
Several Taiwan watchers reacted in anger earlier this month when the Presidential Office said it would turn to the European Parliament for help over the “Taiwan, Province of China” name controversy at the WHO. Why, several asked, would President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration not turn to its oldest ally, the US, for help on the matter and seek succor instead from the Europeans, whose assistance could be expected to bring but the most marginal of results?
It would be easy to assume that Ma’s decision was in fact based on the expectation that the EU would do nothing that risked causing anger in Beijing. By so doing, Ma, who is seeking re-election in January, would meet expectations at home that he do something to redress the slight, while ensuring that the outcome wouldn’t undermine relations with Beijing, which remains the core of his current and future policy.
While there may be some validity to this contention, the context in which the controversy emerged provides alternative explanations. Ma very likely wanted to seek assistance from the US on the matter, but may have been dissuaded by Washington, or US officials in Taiwan, from doing so. The reason is simple: Just as the crisis risked boiling over, General Chen Bingde (陳炳德), chief of general staff for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was arriving in Washington on a groundbreaking visit to mend military-to-military ties amid fears of China’s “rise.” The last thing Washington wanted at this sensitive juncture was for a name flap at the WHO to interfere with what the Pentagon and other US agencies saw as a very important visit. Given China’s propensity to call off meetings in retaliation for support of any kind for Taiwan, we can assume that any intervention on Washington’s part at the WHO could have derailed the whole visit, which was months in the making and necessitated well-calibrated preparations.
Rather than always assume the worst from the Ma administration, we should pay more attention to the environment in which it operates and the immense challenges it faces in terms of its relationship with the US. History is replete with precedents in which larger political imperatives prevented governments from adopting what otherwise looked like what should have been “rational” and “logical” policies. Britain’s and India’s official silence when the PLA invaded Tibet in the early 1950s is such an example, with both governments forced to take the crisis in Korea, among others, into consideration.
Which brings us to another issue over which the Ma administration has faced heavy criticism: arms sales.
Over the past three years or so, Ma has made several headline-grabbing calls on Washington to release the 66 F-16C/D aircraft requested by Taiwan — so often, in fact, that a number of analysts (this author, included) have come to regard the whole exercise as nothing more than cynical signaling for domestic consumption.
As it turns out, however, incompetence, rather than lack of will, appears to have been the main cause for the lack of results.
Information obtained by this author reveals it is unlikely the Ma administration was being disingenuous in its calls for the F-16C/Ds and diesel-electric submarines. Reliable sources say there is every reason to believe that Taipei genuinely wants them and understand clearly the downside should it not secure the commitment from Washington. In fact, in all meetings at the senior level with Taiwanese officials attended by sources consulted for this article, the officials were “singing from the same song sheet.”
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