Taiwan police chief pays first visit to mainland

Taiwan's police chief is paying his first visit to the Chinese mainland, to explore joint efforts in fighting crime, the mainland's Taiwan affairs spokesman said Wednesday.

Wang Cho-chiun, the director-general of Taiwan's regional police agency, arrived with a delegation on Tuesday for a seven-day visit at the invitation of the mainland official for the "Agreement on Cross-Strait Mutual Assistance in Cracking Down on Crime," said Yang Yi, spokesman of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office at a press briefing.

Wang was expected to exchange views with mainland police on issues regarding implementation of the agreement, said Yang.

The mainland and Taiwan signed the agreement in April 2009 in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. Since then the two police departments across the Strait have set up multi-level contact mechanisms.

Taiwan police authorities' statistics show that from the time the agreement was signed to September this year, police across the Strait had jointly detected 17 major fraud cases and arrested 1,254 criminal suspects.

Wang's mainland trip comes after a Chinese mainland police delegation led by Chen Zhimin, Vice Minister of Public Security, visited Taiwan from Sept. 13 to 18 this year.

According to the agreement on mutual assistance in judicial areas, the two sides will collaborate in civil and criminal fields and take measures to jointly tackle crime, with a special focus on major crimes involving abductions, weapons, drugs and human trafficking, and cross-Strait organized crime.

Economic cases of fraud, money laundering, counterfeiting or falsifying currencies and securities would also be targeted, according to the agreement.

Source:Xinhua