Three members of the Taiwanese Yiguandao older than 70 have been detained in China for more than two months and could be imprisoned for up to seven years for religious activity in China. The case not only exposed China’s longstanding suppression of freedom of religion, but also demonstrated how the authoritarian state’s arbitrary detentions are a severe threat to human rights and safety.
According to their families, the three elderly Yiguandao followers had traveled across the Taiwan Strait many times in recent years to read religious texts with Chinese and never involved themselves in political activities. However, in early October, they were arrested by Chinese police in a raid on a religious gathering at a home in Guangdong Province.
The three Taiwanese were taken into custody without explanation or notice to Taiwan, against the Cross-Strait Joint Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, for more than two months. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office finally released a statement saying the three were detained on suspicion of “organizing and practicing as members of a cult that undermines law enforcement,” which carries a punishment of three to seven years imprisonment, or more if considered a severe offense.
Although China officially recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Taoism, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a long history of suppressing religion. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ascent, the Chinese government has further tightened its religious affairs regulations to step up its control over religious venues and activities for accomplishing Xi’s plan of “Sinicization” of religions, aiming to bring all religions in line with nationalism and “Xi Jinping thought.”
In addition to nationwide crackdowns on Christian celebrations and demolishing major mosques and churches, China last year imposed new regulations banning religious groups from having ties with foreign organizations and forcing them to deliver “patriotic” education to believers.
While the Chinese authorities called for an increase in religious exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, the arrest of Taiwanese Yiguandao followers has clearly demonstrated the CCP’s fundamental and consistent suppression of religious freedom.
The worrying situation in Hong Kong should have been a warning on China’s arbitrary detentions. A report by the Hong Kong Centre for Human Rights last month revealed that, under the territory’s new national security legislation, the number of prisoners there has increased to 9,280, a record high in a decade. Among those, the number of pretrial detainees has doubled, which has led to a systematic human rights crisis.
According to the Straits Exchange Foundation, there were at least 77 incidents reported of Taiwanese going missing in China between January last year and September, with more than 40 of those still unreachable. The Mainland Affairs Council has issued an alert regarding China’s increasing arbitrary imprisonment of Taiwanese members of religious groups in the past year, and cautioned against travel to China, especially since the imposition of new national security legislation that treats foreigners with more suspicion.
Religious exchanges allowed by Chinese authorities only serve as tools for its political “united front” purposes.
In recent years, Chinese government-controlled religious groups have reached out to Taiwanese religious groups and provided free trips to China to attend events promoting “united front” propaganda, such as: “Taiwan and China belong to one family” and “seeking the roots of religion in China.” Some religious groups even have been lured into plans to influence Taiwan’s elections and cross-strait policies.
Religious interactions between people across the Taiwan Strait should be encouraged, but the CCP government’s judicial threats and political manipulation call for caution.
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
On Feb. 7, the New York Times ran a column by Nicholas Kristof (“What if the valedictorians were America’s cool kids?”) that blindly and lavishly praised education in Taiwan and in Asia more broadly. We are used to this kind of Orientalist admiration for what is, at the end of the day, paradoxically very Anglo-centered. They could have praised Europeans for valuing education, too, but one rarely sees an American praising Europe, right? It immediately made me think of something I have observed. If Taiwanese education looks so wonderful through the eyes of the archetypal expat, gazing from an ivory tower, how
China has apparently emerged as one of the clearest and most predictable beneficiaries of US President Donald Trump’s “America First” and “Make America Great Again” approach. Many countries are scrambling to defend their interests and reputation regarding an increasingly unpredictable and self-seeking US. There is a growing consensus among foreign policy pundits that the world has already entered the beginning of the end of Pax Americana, the US-led international order. Consequently, a number of countries are reversing their foreign policy preferences. The result has been an accelerating turn toward China as an alternative economic partner, with Beijing hosting Western leaders, albeit
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
RSS