And let’s not forget that the same Taiwanese who complain about China disrespecting Taiwan’s sovereignty would applaud any Taiwanese woman who abducted her US-born child from the United States despite a court ruling banning her from doing so.
The massive phone scam problem vexing China and Taiwan
A recent diplomatic row between Taiwan and China has cast light on a massive international telecoms fraud problem.
It is said to involve thousands of scammers, some of them pretending to be government officials to extract money from victims.
The scam has reportedly cost mainland Chinese victims billions of dollars and to have driven some to suicide.
Earlier this month a group of suspects, including Taiwanese, were deported from Kenya to China, angering Taiwan.
On Friday, Chinese officials said those 45 Taiwanese suspects will face trial on the mainland, refusing Taiwan’s request they be sent back to Taiwan.
More here:
bbc.com/news/world-asia-36108762
Japan’s kidnapping of the fishing boat shows that Japan isn’t above making political moves to influence and humiliate Taiwan.
Compared to the outcry about the alleged phone scammers being sent to China, Taiwan’s reaction to the Japanese abduction and forced ransom payment was surprisingly muted.
Compared to the outcry about the alleged phone scammers being sent to China, Taiwan’s reaction to the Japanese abduction and forced ransom payment was surprisingly muted.[/quote]
The cognitive dissonance is quite interesting.
Which incident was that?
If it was the usual case of a Taiwanese fishing boat turning up where it shouldn’t (they’re notorious for it), the Japanese are within their rights to impound it. Crimes committed within a country’s physical jurisdiction are always tried under local law. It’s pretty normal.
[quote=“finley”]Which incident was that?
If it was the usual case of a Taiwanese fishing boat turning up where it shouldn’t (they’re notorious for it), the Japanese are within their rights to impound it. Crimes committed within a country’s physical jurisdiction are always tried under local law. It’s pretty normal.[/quote]
The story was big news in all papers, maybe you missed it. Taiwanese fishing boats are sometimes guilty of poaching in other countries’ waters, especially the PI. The recent incident with Japan though was clearly an illegal action by Japan, as explained in the relevant news stories. Even the Japanophile Taipei Times called it “brazen and reprehensible.”
It still doesn’t make sense to me. I’m an American, I hit somebody from Britain over the head while in Taiwan, and I end up in London on trial after the local court acquitted me?
That is how extradition works, and the United States government is engaged in that. I have posted a news story a few pages back about a Romanian guy travelling to another European country that ended up in the the US on trial.
That is how extradition works, and the United States government is engaged in that. I have posted a news story a few pages back about a Romanian guy travelling to another European country that ended up in the the US on trial.[/quote]
Three British bankers living in the UK were accused of wire fraud against a US investment bank, and were extradited to the US to stand trial there even though the crime was committed in the UK. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NatWest_Three)
Vctor Bout, Russian arms dealer, was arrested in Thailand, extradited to the US, where he is in jail now, because he supposedly sold arms to the Colombian FARC rebels to be used against US forces. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Bout)
Then there is Dotcom case, a German citizen, arrested in New Zealand for supposed copyright infringement against US companies, and the US wants him extradited… . . and on the the list goes.
Plus we are not dealing with a blow to the head, but with Taiwanese organized crime on a global scale. Hundreds of Taiwanese phone scammers have been arrested in Australia, the PI, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, Kenya, Uganda, etc. When they are sent back to Taiwan, Taiwan judges show little interest in prosecuting fraud committed overseas against non-Taiwanese. As a result the suspects are either released or sentenced to a short jail term that can be converted to a fine, adding to the reputation of Taiwan as a haven for fraudsters.
"
Why judges avoid detaining fraud criminals" chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/anal … judges.htm
Still a greater danger is this - suppose you were in China last month, and now you’re in Kenya. You could be sent back to China for causing injury to a Chinese person while you were there.
Don’t forget to ask for a green jumpsuit and demand to have a televised interrogation.
Still a greater danger is this - suppose you were in China last month, and now you’re in Kenya. You could be sent back to China for causing injury to a Chinese person while you were there.
Don’t forget to ask for a green jumpsuit and demand to have a televised interrogation.[/quote]
Why make this about China? Just google “USA seeks extradition” and you’ll find a plethora of results.
If Taiwanese courts were not so pathetic in their sentencing of non-violent white collar crimes, these extraditions to Mainland China would have never happened.
Ask around and see if friends / relatives know someone who has been ripped off by phone scammers. And then ask what happened to the scammers. If you ever had someone close to your family driven into bankruptcy and then suicide, while the gang behind it walked free and even laughed on their way out of court, you’d hope these scammers would have been sent to North Korea instead.
And this is not a blue vs green issue. This is an issue of general dishonesty in society.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/taiwan-issues/2015/05/01/434839/Taiwan-has.htm
Still a greater danger is this - suppose you were in China last month, and now you’re in Kenya. You could be sent back to China for causing injury to a Chinese person while you were there.[/quote]
Why make this about China? Just google “USA seeks extradition” and you’ll find a plethora of results.
If Taiwanese courts were not so pathetic in their sentencing of non-violent white collar crimes, these extraditions to Mainland China would have never happened.
Ask around and see if friends / relatives know someone who has been ripped off by phone scammers. And then ask what happened to the scammers. If you ever had someone close to your family driven into bankruptcy and then suicide, while the gang behind it walked free and even laughed on their way out of court, you’d hope these scammers would have been sent to North Korea instead.
And this is not a blue vs green issue. This is an issue of general dishonesty in society.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/taiwan-issues/2015/05/01/434839/Taiwan-has.htm[/quote]
It seem that you, and others, such as Finley, are allowing your bloodlust to merge your judgement on what are essentially two completely different issues
-
Are white collar criminals adequately investigated and punished in Taiwan?
The answer is clearly ‘No’. However, the solution is to ramp up pressure for a change in Taiwan - not send them off to a political concentration camp in China - which last time i checked wasn’t famous for it’s impartial justice system. That’s just ‘burn the witches’ type thinking. -
Should Taiwanese nationals be deported/extradited from an overseas country to China?
The answer again is clearly ‘No’. For the obvious reason that Taiwan and China are different countries.
People have brought up various extradition examples, but as Ironlady says, where’s the one about the American who was charged with a crime in, let’s say, Iraq, where he was found innocent, and was then ‘deported’ to Russia, where he was put on a show-trial? Becaue that’s basically what seems to be happening here.
And whether they are innocent or not is irrelevant. With aggressive, inciteful behaviour seeming more and more likely from China towards Taiwan, you don’t have to be George Orwell to work out that such a system would be open to unchecked abuse by what we know to be a human-rights-oppressing totalitarian regime. That’s not something that should be enabled, regardless of how bloodthirty you might feel.
Besides, if they really believed that Taiwan and China are one country, what possible objection could they have with them being ‘deported’ to Taiwan?
Yes. And where precisely does one draw the line for a crime being “damaging” enough to show that prosecution in the place where the crime occurred, or the place the perpetrator is from, is not enough?
What if you phone scam but you suck at it? What if you kill people? How many do you have to kill before it’s “enough”? What if you only injure them? What’s “enough” pain that other countries should take over and administer what they consider to be justice despite your own judiciary system?
If I got ripped off, it doesn’t matter what I hope happened to whoever did it. The means available are what is provided by law. If that’s not enough, society should change the law and/or demand that the law be fully implemented (if that’s the problem). It doesn’t mean society should contract out to a third party to “take care of the problem”.
[quote=“hsinhai78”]
If Taiwanese courts were not so pathetic in their sentencing of non-violent white collar crimes, these extraditions to Mainland China would have never happened.[/quote]
I think you mean “There would not have been so convenient an excuse to try to justify extraditions to Mainland China”.
So anyone, anywhere, who allegedly commits a crime against a Chinese national should be extradited to China? Really?
[quote=“ironlady”][quote=“hsinhai78”]
If Taiwanese courts were not so pathetic in their sentencing of non-violent white collar crimes, these extraditions to Mainland China would have never happened.[/quote]
I think you mean “There would not have been so convenient an excuse to try to justify extraditions to Mainland China”.
So anyone, anywhere, who allegedly commits a crime against a Chinese national should be extradited to China? Really?[/quote]
I respect your intellect. So please for just one moment stop the anti-China ideology and be rational.
Where is the material and formal difference between China asking Kenya to extradite Taiwanese and the United States asking Bulgaria to extradite a Romanian citizen? Neither the Taiwanese nor the Romanian had been found guilty by a court in the extraditing country, yet in both cases the suspect(s) ended up in China and the US respectively.
Here’s the link. http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/01/cyberbusts-security-internet-technology-security-cyberbusts.html
I’m not asking what is done elsewhere. I’m asking what the law is, and what the basis for the law is. Not everything that happens happens according to the law, particularly in international relations.
China claims it has jurisdiction in these cases because the crimes are directed against Chinese citizen living in China. Several jurists, both Taiwanese and Western agree. Like this article in the NY Times
“Deporting suspects to third countries is not illegal under international law, said Julian Ku, a professor of international law at Hofstra University. China also has the right under international law to prosecute people suspected of committing crimes directed at Chinese territory, Mr. Ku said. “China makes a lot of bad arguments, but this one is pretty good,” he said.”
nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world … .html?_r=0
The US used a similar argument in the British case mentioned earlier of three British bankers accused of defrauding a US bank. They claimed the crime scene was in the US therefore they should be tried in the US even though it was wire fraud conducted from the UK. They used the same argument to get some British hackers extradited who penetrated US computer system while living in the UK.
Jurisdiction in transnational crime gets pretty murky and criminals readily take advantage of that.
A Brookings Report on Transnational Organized Crime and Mass-Marketing Fraud says this:
. . . The perpetrators know how to exploit the incompatibilities amongst jurisdictions to create a low-risk environment for themselves and their fraudulent operations . . .
Another problem the report mentions is this:
. . . some jurisdictions are not always keen to take the lead role, or assist in an investigation or prosecution, particularly when the victims are not located in their jurisdictions.
Interesting. The issue then becomes whether the suspects were extradited to China as Chinese or as non-Chinese.
If you commit crimes against people in country X, Y or Z, then you should expect to be brought to justice in country X, Y or Z, no matter where you’re hiding out when you commit the crimes or when they are detected. That is only right and just under the fundamental tenets of international law, basic jurisprudence and common sense.
If they had been PRC citizens and their victims Taiwanese, it would be absolutely right and just for them to be extradited to Taiwan to face trial here.
If they had been citizens of the US, UK or anywhere else, and had scammed victims in a dozen other countries, it would be absolutely right and just for them to be extradited to whichever of those countries acted to secure their extradition, regardless of the relative merits of the legal and/or political systems in their victims’ respective countries.
If I committed a telecom crime against a victim or victims in North Korea, Iran, or anywhere else in the world that anyone might consider to possess an unreasonably harsh or in any other way flawed legal system, it would not be for me - or whomsoever on my behalf - to bellyache against my being extradited to stand trial there.
It’s as clear as crystal to me, and I don’t understand why anyone would argue otherwise.
And what’s with calling these people “white-collar criminals”, with the inference that this makes their actions less serious and justifies their being treated with kid gloves? They are despicable criminals who prey upon gullible people and inflict great harm and misery on their hapless victims. Their crimes are every bit as serious as any crimes against property, and every possible effort should be made to apprehend them and, through whatever means of cross-border cooperation are available, to hit them with whatever sanctions of law are available when they are apprehended.
As long as the extradition process contains adequate safeguards to prevent it being abused for political purposes to secure the delivery of persons when there is no substantial evidence of their having committed the extraditable crimes of which they are accused, then there are no reasonable grounds for arguing against their extradition to the country where their crimes took effect, no matter where that may be. Is there any reason to believe that this condition has not been met in the case of these accused scammers?