China’s new legal guidelines targeting advocates of Taiwanese independence, including allowing trials in absentia, are aimed at gaining jurisdiction, experts said on Monday.
The guidelines, issued on Friday last week with immediate effect, allow courts in China to try “Taiwan independence separatists” in absentia, with “diehard” advocates of independence convicted of inciting secession who also cause “grave harm to the state and the [Chinese] people” potentially being sentenced to death, Xinhua news agency reported.
Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致), director of Taiwan Thinktank’s China Research Center, said that if under China’s opaque judicial system a trial in absentia resulted in a guilty verdict, the defendant could be subject to an international arrest warrant.
Photo: CNA
Once such a warrant is issued, China would tell nations with which it has a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) or other forms of legal agreements that the wanted person is a Chinese citizen, Wu said.
A trial in absentia would enforce Beijing’s “one China” principle regarding Taiwan, asserting that China has sovereignty over Taiwan and framing it as a domestic matter, Wu added.
That could pressure other nations, especially those with a MLAT or friendly diplomatic relations with China, to assist in related arrests or extraditions, he said, adding that this long-arm jurisdiction was aimed at asserting jurisdiction over Taiwan.
However, Wu said that many democratic nations provide assistance to individuals involved in political cases and would not extradite them to China.
That is especially true, given China’s weakened global influence, which makes it harder for Beijing to use economic incentives or pressure to compel other nations to cooperate as it has done in the past, he said.
Thirty-nine nations have extradition treaties with China, including popular travel destinations for Taiwanese, such as South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, according to Chinese Ministry of Justice data.
There are also 55 nations that have signed treaties with China on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, including the US, Japan and Australia, which mostly involves collecting and exchanging information.
The timing of China’s move was also significant, said Arthur Wang (王智盛), secretary-general of the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association and an expert on cross-strait relations.
He said the new guidelines were issued on Friday last week because the date was about one month after President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20.
“After a month of observation, they [Chinese officials] found they could not restrain Lai’s responses [to cross-strait relations],” Wang said. “Therefore, I believe this was a preset legal tool in their toolbox for sanctions against Taiwan.”
In his inaugural address on May 20, Lai called on Beijing to acknowledge Taiwan’s government and reiterated his stance that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other.
Despite criticism from Beijing that the statement “was an assertion of Taiwanese independence,” Lai on May 30 said that what he had said was the truth and he did not intend to provoke.
When asked why Chinese authorities were taking a legal approach, Wang said that China has shifted its strategy from infiltration and cognitive warfare against Taiwan to a new type of legal warfare.
This new strategy uses legal discourse to assert China’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over Taiwan, supported by its influence in international law, he said.
“Chinese military aircraft circling Taiwan and crossing the median line have become tactics that everyone has seen through,” Wang said. “However, this new type of legal warfare might create new fears and pressures for the Taiwanese people.”
He said that China has struggled to find a strategy to counter the internationalization of the Taiwan issue, leading to its authorities seeking a fundamental solution through legal means.
“By defining Taiwan independence and establishing long-arm jurisdiction and trials in absentia, China aims to curb the further internationalization of the Taiwan issue and prevent any subsequent adverse impact on its Taiwan policy,” Wang said.
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