Taiwanese who apply for a residence permit for China’s Fujian Province would be subject to “digital surveillance” by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a Taiwanese government official said yesterday.
Early last month, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office published a document outlining 21 measures to turn Fujian into a demonstration zone for relations with Taiwan.
The planned measures would expand favorable treatment for Taiwanese people and companies, and seek to convince Taiwanese to buy property and seek employment in Fujian. Taiwanese planning to live in Fujian to take advantage of the measures would be eligible for a residence permit.
Photo: Reuters
“The CCP has claimed that these residence permits would allow Taiwanese to enjoy the same benefits as Chinese nationals,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “However, the permits would make Taiwanese subject to the same digital monitoring that Chinese have increasingly been subject to since Beijing amended its counterespionage law.”
The CCP imposes surveillance through committees at different administrative levels, from provincial downward, they said.
“Recently, it added nine more of those committee members per borough, allowing it to monitor people in a more refined way — and these committees are increasingly using high-tech methods for surveillance,” the official said.
Committees paid by the CCP to monitor residents report the information they collect back to security officials at a provincial or national level, while the CCP uses propaganda to boost compliance from residents and discourage dissent, they said.
Chinese residence permits issued to Taiwanese use numbers that match the permit holder’s Taiwanese identification number, which is a violation of privacy and gives the CCP more control, the official said, adding that the measure could also make it harder for Taiwanese businesspeople operating in China to send money back to Taiwan or elsewhere.
“We have had reports from Taiwanese businesspeople who say that after they applied for residence in Fujian, Chinese officials collected information about their movements, their financial accounts and their purchases,” the official said.
“The CCP would know everything about those who apply for the permits, including even how much money they have in accounts overseas,” they added.
Applying for a Fujian residence permit would only make it easier for the CCP to monitor and arrest the permit holder, the official said.
“The CCP intends to create the illusion of exercising jurisdiction over Taiwan using international and Chinese domestic laws. Taiwanese should exercise caution when considering whether to apply for residence permits in China,” they said.
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