Reports on Saturday that two Taiwanese citizens were detained by Chinese police were a stark reminder of the unbridgeable divide between democracy and authoritarianism.
Shao Yuhua (邵玉華), a Falun Gong practitioner who immigrated from China 11 years ago, was taken away, along with her Taiwan-born daughter, while visiting her family in Henan Province, the Taiwan Falun Dafa Association said.
Her sister, a follower of the same spiritual movement, was also detained. Given their faith, it is almost certain that the three were targeted not because of any crime they had committed, but because their religion has been labeled an “evil cult” by Beijing, which flouts its constitutional obligation to honor freedom of religion.
Their detention highlights a problem other governments have encountered: Beijing does not recognize dual or renounced citizenship for Chinese nationals. Even governments like Canada, which China recognizes, have trouble convincing Beijing to respect their right to protect their citizens.
It should therefore come as no surprise that Chinese authorities have no qualms about detaining Taiwanese citizens of Chinese origin.
Nevertheless, action by the Taiwanese government in taking up Shao and her child’s case could be crucial to the fate of the two.
In 2006, Huseyincan Celil — a Uighur activist who fled China, received UN refugee status and was later granted citizenship by the Canadian government — was arrested by Chinese authorities. Celil had been visiting family in Uzbekistan when he was detained and handed over to Xinjiang police at their request.
In the case of Celil, Canada’s swift and persistent diplomatic efforts may have prevented him from being executed. Ottawa sent diplomats to China to lobby for his release and secured a promise from Beijing that he would not be executed. Later, some reports said that Celil was sentenced to death, but that at the last minute the penalty was commuted to life imprisonment.
Celil remains in prison and it seems unlikely that China will yield to Ottawa’s demands for his release. Nevertheless, the decision not to execute him in a country that is almost unsparing with the death penalty was significant.
In the case of Shao and her daughter, Taiwan’s actions could help determine whether the pair will ever be freed.
The arrests illustrate the severity of China’s crackdown on Falun Gong, in which even children are not spared. It is unclear how many people have been sentenced to prison or thrown into the extrajudicial laogai system, in which prisoners have no recourse to courts, their families may not be informed of their whereabouts or sentence, and sentences are subject to arbitrary extension.
If Taipei keeps quiet on Shao’s detention, it will be failing its obligation to protect its citizens. It must push decisively and sincerely for the release of Shao and her daughter.
Unfortunately, given its silence on the oppression of Tibetans and Uighurs, it is unlikely that the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will risk angering Chinese authorities by touching on one of the most taboo subjects in China — Falun Gong.
This, however, would only amplify doubts about the priorities of Ma’s cross-strait policies. In all dealings with China, the welfare of Taiwanese citizens must take priority.
NOTE: In the editorial above, we reported that Falun Gong practitioner Shao Yuhua's daughter and her sister, also a Falun Gong follower, had been detained by Chinese police. Shao's daughter was not detained. Her sister does not practice Falun Gong and was detained briefly and released. Only Shao remains in detention. The Taipei Times regrets the error.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
On May 13, the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to Article 6 of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of nuclear reactors from 40 to 60 years, thereby providing a legal basis for the extension or reactivation of nuclear power plants. On May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators used their numerical advantage to pass the TPP caucus’ proposal for a public referendum that would determine whether the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant should resume operations, provided it is deemed safe by the authorities. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing