A visiting US official responsible for religious freedom yesterday urged the Chinese government to release jailed Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who is serving a five-year prison term in China on charges of subversion of state power.
US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, who is visiting Taiwan for a regional religious freedom forum, the first of its kind, made the call during a news briefing in Taipei after a meeting with Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜).
Lee Ming-che has been detained in China since March 2017 and serving a five-year prison term since being convicted in November of that year of subversion of state power.
Since then, his wife has been visiting worldwide human rights watchdogs to rally support to jointly call on Beijing for his swift release.
During Tuesday’s briefing, which he attended with Lee Ching-yu, Brownback said that this is the second time in less than two months that he has met with her.
The previous meeting was in February, when Lee Ching-yu visited Washington.
Describing the case as being of high concern for the US government, he said a human rights advocate such as Lee Ming-che should not be incarcerated, but should be set free, especially as his health is deteriorating.
According to Lee Ching-yu, Lee Ming-che has lost about 30kg, must perform forced labor and is fed spoiled food in a prison in Hunan Province. She has not been able to meet with her husband since December last year, her last visit to the prison.
“This is not something that is happening to him alone, but to every prisoner in that prison,” she said.
She expressed gratitude to the US government for their concern about her husband’s incarceration, but warned that this kind of threat over human right advocates does not target only Taiwan, but the whole world.
The US official affirmed that his government believes that Lee Ming-che should be set free, and called on the Chinese government to release him.
Asked about what concrete plan the US has to persuade China to release Lee, Brownback said that the US continues to look at “additional concrete steps if action is not taken [on China’s part].”
He said that the standard operating procedure on the US side concerning such cases is that Washington would first try to solve the issue “quietly and privately.”
“If that does not work, we will raise public pressure on the case. If that does not work, then we take the next step, which is often to look at what specific action we can take,” he said.
He used as an example the case of US pastor Andrew Brunson, who was detained in Turkey for nearly two years over alleged links to political groups.
The US government later imposed sanctions on Turkey over the case until the latter ultimately released the pastor in October last year.
In the case of Lee Ming-che, Brownback said that the US is still at the stage of raising awareness over his imprisonment to put pressure on China.
He admitted that he is “deeply concerned” about Lee’s rapidly deteriorating condition.
This is the first time that Brownback has visited Taiwan. The visit is scheduled to conclude today.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brownback was a strong supporter of Taiwan long before he assumed office as a US ambassador-at-large on Feb. 1 last year.
He was a member of the US Senate Taiwan Caucus and hosted a Taiwanese agricultural mission when he served as governor of Kansas, the ministry said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS