Some foreign companies are considering moving Taiwanese employees out of China after Beijing said it could impose the death penalty on “die-hard” Taiwanese independence advocates, four people familiar with the matter said.
The new guidelines have caused some Taiwanese expatriates and foreign multinationals operating in China to scramble to assess their legal risks and exposure, said the people, who include a lawyer and two executives with direct knowledge of the discussions.
“Several companies have come to us to assess the risks to their personnel,” said the lawyer, James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based partner at the Perkins Coie law firm.
Photo: Reuters
He declined to identify the companies or industries for confidentiality reasons.
“The companies are still concerned that there may be some gray areas, such as whether a benign social media post or voting for a particular political party or candidate in Taiwan elections could be interpreted as engaging in pro-independence activities,” Zimmerman said.
Reuters has previously consulted Perkins Coie on unrelated matters in China.
As of 2022, about 177,000 Taiwanese were working in China, according to the most recent Taiwanese government survey.
Taiwanese staff are employed by many multinationals in China, given their linguistic abilities and cultural familiarity with the country.
Many more work for the myriad Taiwanese firms that operate in China and have, by the Taiwanese government’s estimate, invested more than US$200 billion since 1991, helping fuel China’s growth to become the world’s second-biggest economy.
Some foreign firms operating in China have held meetings with employees on safety, said the two executives, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Another source, who was briefed on the matter, said some Taiwanese staff in China have received and accepted the option to leave the country.
The June 21 guidelines criminalize promoting Taiwan’s entry to international organizations where statehood is a condition, having external official exchanges, and suppressing parties, groups and people that promote “reunification.”
Also illegal are “other acts that seek to separate Taiwan from China” — phrasing that allows Beijing to interpret the rules broadly, legal experts said.
Among “the ringleaders or those who have committed serious crimes,” the guidelines say, “if the harm to the country and the people is particularly serious and the circumstances are particularly bad, they may be sentenced to death.”
The regulations do not further specify who might be subject to the death penalty.
Asked how companies and Taiwanese employees are reacting to the guidelines, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Reuters in a statement: “Using criminal law measures to punish criminal separatist elements and uphold the country’s core interests is a common practice for all countries.”
“It needs to be emphasized that the relevant legislative document targets the extreme minority of die-hard ‘Taiwan independence’ elements and their separatist activities, and does not implicate the vast majority of Taiwan compatriots,” the ministry said.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Last week, it said the vast majority of Taiwanese have nothing to worry about and can travel there “in high spirits.”
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees relations with Beijing, told Reuters in a statement: “The government reminds Taiwanese businesspeople and Taiwanese employees in mainland China that they must pay more attention to their personal safety now. The risk is indeed increasing.”
Last week, the council urged Taiwanese to avoid non-essential travel to China, Hong Kong and Macau due to the new regulations.
The council last month said that eight retired Taiwanese military and police officers had been detained in China over the previous year.
Last year, it warned that Taiwanese academics were being detained and interrogated upon entry to China, even if they were on formal exchange programs.
One of the executives who spoke to Reuters — a senior official who works with Taiwanese investors in China — said his phone lit up after China announced the new guidelines as people discussed what they could mean for their work.
He said the guidelines add to the uncertainty of doing business in China, coming on the heels of such measures as China’s anti-espionage law and its National Security Law for Hong Kong.
The second executive, who works for a large multinational whose Taiwanese executives frequently go on business trips to China, said they had been having regular meetings with senior managers to asses the danger and whether to withdraw those who are working in the country.
“It’s not yet gotten to the stage of deciding not to send them there, but we are reviewing the risk daily,” the executive said.
Sung Wen-ti (宋文笛), a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said the guidelines would force foreign companies to “either move their operations out entirely to keep Taiwanese talent or they stop hiring Taiwanese talent.”
That would mean that “even fewer Taiwanese will be working or living in China, thereby making Beijing’s attempts to win over their hearts and minds even harder,” Sung said.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS