By Director General, Charles Chi-Yu Chou
INTERPOL is the world’s most essential institution for multilateral police cooperation. With 196 member states, it plays a key platform for law enforcement agencies to share intelligence, access criminal databases, and respond to emerging threats in real time. It ultimately seeks to protect the public by making sure police worldwide can work shoulder to shoulder. Despite this idealistic mandate, Taiwan has been denied participation for more than forty years. The decision is inherently political, and it creates a gap in the global security architecture at a time when crime is becoming more sophisticated and transnational.
Indeed, Taiwan has one of the strongest public safety records in the world. According to the Numbeo global database, Taiwan ranks fourth safest among 147 countries. Crime rates are extremely low, public trust in law enforcement is high, and our officers routinely assist nearby foreign partners on drug smuggling, cyberfraud, and financial crime. These are the exact characteristics of a successful country, aligning with INTERPOL’s vision. In 2024, Taiwan dismantled an extensive online platform distributing child sexual exploitation materials, involving cryptocurrency laundering and encrypted networks. The operation required international coordination, yet Taiwan had to navigate the investigation without direct access to INTERPOL’s invaluable I-24/7 global communications system.
And that communication gap might be an avoidable loophole for criminal syndicates. Scam centers, along with drug and human trafficking, have expanded across Southeast Asia, trapping victims from, according to an INTERPOL report itself, 66 countries. INTERPOL has sounded the alarm on this trend. Taiwan has the experience, expertise and operational capacity to assist, and our absence slows down intelligence sharing and arrests.
Allowing Taiwan to participate, even as an observer, could immediately strengthen international policing. It would ensure that information moves quickly, that suspects are intercepted earlier, and that victims receive help faster. Global security hinges on seamless cooperation. Taiwan remains ready and willing to contribute expertise, data, and more. Keeping Taiwan outside INTERPOL leaves an opening in the international law enforcement network, and it is urgent to close the gap.
