China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Wednesday confirmed that Taiwan-based publisher Li Yanhe (李延賀) was under investigation on suspicion of “endangering national security.”
Li is a Chinese national and resident of Taiwan whose Taiwan-based company, Gusa Press, has published books critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Activists said he was arrested last month while visiting relatives in China and dealing with residency issues. Li’s arrest, like that of Taiwanese democracy advocate Yang Chih-yuan (楊智淵) in August last year, shows that the government is not doing enough to warn people about the dangers of visiting China, where arbitrary arrests occur regularly.
When Taiwanese democracy advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) was arrested in China in 2017, his detention on trumped-up sedition charges sparked an outcry in Taiwan and garnered international attention. Lee was released in April last year and returned to Taiwan, where he spoke publicly about his ordeal. Despite Lee’s high-profile case, people who are publicly critical of the CCP continue to visit China, thinking that they can criticize the CCP while outside of China and that their criticisms would go unheeded by Beijing. However, news reports about investigations into Chinese police officials operating in democratic nations around the world show that the party’s intelligence apparatus extends far beyond China’s borders.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK on Friday last week reported that a woman from Hong Kong who was studying in Japan was arrested last month when she returned home on suspicion of posting messages online advocating the territory’s independence and secession from China. She was released on bail, but was ordered to surrender her passport and is unable to travel back to Japan.
It must be made clear to anyone who has ever been publicly critical of the CCP or supportive of Chinese rights advocates or groups, that travel to China — including Hong Kong and Macau — could result in arrest and imprisonment without a fair trial, as well as being denied contact with friends and family.
Perhaps the recent high-profile visits to China by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members have given the false impression that China is a safe place for Taiwanese, but nothing could be further from the truth. China lacks all semblance of respect for human rights and does not have an independent judiciary. Even transit through airports it controls is dangerous and could result in detention of people who have criticized the Chinese government or supported democracy in China.
Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman David Lee (李大維) on Wednesday said that the government would “definitely take measures” to protect the rights of Li and Yang. However, people should be aware that the government cannot protect them once they step foot on Chinese soil. For example, the CCP and the KMT in February collaborated to create the illusion that the KMT successfully negotiated an end to a Chinese import ban on Taiwanese agricultural products. The CCP, which wants the more malleable KMT to win next year’s presidential election, orchestrated that narrative in a bid to bolster support for the KMT.
The CCP is the only authority in China. The same logic applies when US companies operate in China under the false impression that they can make arrangements with private Chinese companies, free of influence by the CCP. In reality, there can be no international business arrangements in China without the CCP’s involvement and consent.
The Democratic Progressive Party administration must do more to educate the public about the dangers of visiting China and advise against travel there unless it is absolutely necessary — and even then with the knowledge that the government cannot help them once they are in Chinese territory.
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