The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday last week urged Taiwanese to exercise caution when traveling overseas, citing an intelligence report saying that China might attempt to arrest Taiwanese abroad.
China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan.
A senior Chinese official reportedly gave closed-door instructions to Chinese state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agencies suggested.
The official reportedly said that “overseas police stations” and Chinese embassies in countries friendly to China were also asked to execute the guidelines and arrest or harass Taiwanese tourists, students and residents in those countries.
Countries have already been extraditing Taiwanese to China under Beijing’s instructions for years. The BBC on Dec. 1, 2021, reported that more than 600 Taiwanese arrested overseas from 2016 to 2019 were deported to China, citing data from Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders. Those deported to China were at risk of persecution and severe human rights abuses, the report said. Spain and Kenya had extradited the most Taiwanese to China, with authorities in those countries citing a lack of formal relations with Taiwan, it added.
On Sept. 26 last year, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said it had received a report that a Taiwanese woman who was arrested in South Korea for her alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of two people in the Philippines was reportedly facing extradition to China. The suspect, who was identified by the alias Lee Na (李娜), could be extradited to China under a treaty between the two countries, MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said.
The ministry’s warnings about travel to Cambodia, Laos and some countries in Africa are understandable given that they are developing nations that have close ties with China, but extraditions from Spain and South Korea are concerning given that those are democracies with rule of law.
The so-called Chinese overseas police stations are also a source of concern. Authorities in the US, the UK, Canada and elsewhere have confirmed the presence of the stations and said they are engaged in illegal activity, which China has denied, saying that they are providing services for Chinese citizens abroad rather than policing.
Despite the claims, US authorities have said that the stations “helped Beijing identify pro-democracy activists living in the US,” the BBC wrote on Dec. 19 last year. The report cited then-US Department of Justice assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen as calling the stations “a clear affront to American sovereignty and danger to our community that will not be tolerated.”
Taiwanese traveling or living overseas might be harassed by agents of the Chinese government. Some of them might be particularly vulnerable to such threats due to age, language barriers, lack of knowledge about local laws or other issues.
Taipei must ensure that people traveling abroad are familiar with their rights, informed about which countries present a risk of deportation and knowledgeable about where to go for help while overseas. The government could also communicate with immigration authorities in other countries to seek cooperation on assisting Taiwanese abroad. Meanwhile, it could communicate with countries such as Spain that have deported Taiwanese, seeking to make arrangements that better protect their rights.
Taiwan must do what it can to ensure that Taiwanese traveling and living abroad do not need to live in fear of illegal, extraterritorial actions by China.
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