On Thursday last week, the Supreme Court finalized a guilty conviction against Chinese citizen Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭) for espionage and the 14-month sentence originally handed down by the Taipei District Court in 2017 — also upheld by the High Court in April last year — for breaches of the National Security Act (國家安全法).
This case is in stark contrast to the plight of Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who is being detained in China for engaging in “activities endangering national security.”
Lee’s “crime” was to give an online Chinese friend humanities and social sciences books; share information about the 228 Incident, the subsequent White Terror period and Taiwan’s transition from party-state rule to democracy, including transitional justice and the Sunflower movement; and to provide assistance to Chinese human rights advocates and their families.
Zhou received a 14-month custodial sentence from a Taiwanese court after having been found guilty of espionage, but Lee was handed a five-year sentence by a Chinese court for engaging in “activities endangering national security” and was deprived of his political rights for two years.
This begs the question: Are Taiwan’s law and judges too lenient or are China’s too harsh? Or perhaps Zhou was deserving of a light sentence and Lee was just unlucky?
Taiwanese are of course powerless when it comes to influencing Chinese courts, but they have a right to speak up about their own country’s judges and Zhou’s sentencing.
During the era of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), people convicted of espionage were frequently sentenced to death, and their family members left destitute and homeless. Anyone who received an eight or 10-year prison sentence would have thanked their lucky stars.
It is unclear whether it is due to a genuine newfound respect for human rights or a reduced sense of threat from the “enemy within,” but things have changed since the two Chiangs left the stage and the abolition of Article 100 of the Criminal Code — which provided the legal basis for the government to restrict freedom of expression.
Today, serious crimes such as murder and arson are given much softer sentences than in the past, and the same is true about helping spies or not reporting them.
For example, retired Republic of China Army major general Hsu Nai-chuan (許乃權), who was recruited along with a number of other military officers by then-Chinese People’s Liberation Army intelligence officer Zhen Xiaojiang (鎮小江), received a prison sentence of only two years and 10 months.
Not only that: After Hsu was released from prison in September 2017, he was still entitled to a monthly pension of NT$70,000.
In Taiwan today, a severe punishment for spying is a mere two years and 10 months behind bars, but it can be as short as 14 months. Perhaps the concept of a foreign enemy should be abolished altogether?
Chang Kuo-tsai is a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Edward Jones
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