Taiwan could sign extradition treaties with US and China
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Monday that the country was in the process of signing extradition treaties with Washington and Beijing, adding that he hoped other countries would follow suit.
In light of difficulties in bringing suspects to trial, Ma said Taiwan was negotiating with Washington on signing an extradition treaty. The country also intends to sign an agreement with Beijing modeled on that signed with the U.S., he said.
If all goes well, Ma said he hoped the country could subsequently ink extradition pacts with other countries.
Ma made the remarks while addressing the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in the Asia-Pacific region at the Grand Hotel on Monday morning.
Ma said Taiwan is not a member of the International Criminal Police Organization and has only 23 diplomatic allies. By hosting the IACP conference, the country hoped to promote exchanges with other countries and increase the ability to investigate and prevent international crimes, he said.
At a different setting on Monday, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said that extradition of criminals would be placed on the agenda of the next cross-strait talks scheduled for the first half of the year.
MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said the issue, along with computer hacking, would be included in the meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
Hopefully, both sides could sign an agreement and lay the foundation for future cooperation in this regard, he said.
Liu said that under the Kinmen Agreement, both sides regularly exchange information and arrange for the return of criminals wanted by either side via the International Committee of the Red Cross. While such arrangements were made on a case-by-case basis and had limited effect, Liu said both sides hoped to expand the agreement to cover not only the extradition of wanted criminals but also regular judicial assistance and exchanges of evidence.
Regarding hackers, Liu said that such an issue, like that of extradition, will “definitely be on the agenda” of the next Chiang-Chen meeting. As such a crime is committed with computers, both sides could establish Internet police and deal with the matter under the framework of cross-strait joint crime prevention.
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