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| The campaign headquarters of non-party legislator candidate Wang Xingzhi at the north entrance of Taiwan Railways Keelung Station in Keelung City Image credit: Solomon203 / CC0 1.0 Universal |
On January 13, 2024, Lai Ching-te of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won Taiwan’s presidential election in a three-way race against two rivals who sought warmer ties with China. Reviled by Beijing for rejecting China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, the DPP will hold onto the presidency for an unprecedented third consecutive term following eight years under Tsai Ing-wen. Under Lai, Taiwan will face diplomatic isolation, trade coercion, and military threats from President Xi Jinping as China is expected to ramp up its pressure on the island by arbitrarily arresting more people from Taiwan on the Mainland.
Taiwan began allowing its residents to visit the Mainland in 1987. According to The Straits Exchange Foundation, 594 Taiwanese went missing in China from 1991-2020. In 2019, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said that 149 Taiwanese had disappeared since 2016, the year when Tsai began her first term. While some of these people may have suffered accidents, been detained, or died, 67 cases were unaccounted for due to insufficient information or the Chinese government’s withholding of information. A number of them are believed to be held on political charges. Months after Tsai began her second term in 2020, China announced that its Thunder-2020 campaign had uncovered hundreds of cases orchestrated by Taiwan’s intelligence forces to “infiltrate and sabotage” and to set up a network of spies.
One of the early cases Dui Hua worked on was that of Li Junmin (李俊敏), a Taiwan "spy" who was sentenced to death with reprieve for the now-defunct crime of counterrevolution. Li was granted early release in 2006 despite being once called "defiant and resistant to reform" by the Chinese government.
This post examines the cases of seven Taiwanese arbitrarily detained in China, on charges of endangering state security, since the DPP took power in 2016. Two of the detainees have returned to Taiwan after completing their full prison sentences whereas the others remain in custody, either awaiting hefty jail terms or with their fate unclear.
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| The Straits Exchange Foundation’s headquarters in Dazhi, Taipei. Image credit: Meow, Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Deprivation of Political Rights, Arbitrarily Applied
China’s Criminal Law stipulates that deprivation of political rights (DPR) sentences be applied to individuals convicted of endangering state security and other serious crimes. People serving DPR sentences lose their rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, procession, and demonstration. While foreign nationals are typically deported immediately upon completing their sentences, the situation remains murky for people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Lee Ming-che (李明哲) was among the first Taiwanese arbitrarily detained in China in 2017 when Tsai began her first term as president. Lee, a rights activist, community college administrator, and former member of the DPP, was convicted of subversion in the same year and sentenced to five years in prison with a supplemental two-year DPR sentence. His ordeal stemmed from group discussions he hosted on WeChat about Taiwan democracy. Additionally, he provided financial help to Chinese political prisoners and their families because their stories reminded him of Taiwan under martial law (1949-1987). When his sentence expired on April 14, 2022, he was allowed to return to Taiwan by plane the following day without having to serve his DPR sentence.
Lee’s treatment is in stark contrast to that of another Taiwanese businessman, Lee Meng-chu (李孟居), who completed his 22-month prison sentence for “illegally trafficking in and gathering state secrets/intelligence for foreigners” on July 24, 2021. Lee Ming-chu had been banned from leaving China in order to serve his two years’ DPR sentence. Nonetheless, Lee was allowed to move around China and he used the opportunity to travel to more than 100 cities and meeting dissidents. When his DPR sentence ended on July 24, 2023, Lee left for Japan on the condition that he not return to Taiwan until after the 2024 presidential elections. However, after spending five weeks in Japan, Lee flew back to Taiwan.
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| Lee gave confession in a national news program in October 2020. Image source: Focus Report, CCTV |
Lee Meng-chu was detained in Shenzhen in August 2019 at the height of the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong for possessing a card that read “Go Hong Kong!” — at the time a common protest slogan — and snapping pictures from his hotel of armed police gathering nearby. These actions and their accompanying media coverage were deemed to be evidence of him acting as a “Taiwan independence activist” attempting to foment a color revolution in Hong Kong. Lee took the position that he was a political hostage because China was outraged over Tsai Ing-wen's vocal support for the Hong Kong protesters. His case shows that Taiwanese prisoners can be subjected to exit bans when the Chinese authorities decide to make a political point amid escalating tensions.
Still in Custody
Yang Chih-yuan (杨智渊)
While the two Lees have safely returned to Taiwan, more cases of arbitrary detention have emerged as cross-strait relations have worsened. On August 3, 2022, Yang Chih-yuan was detained in Wenzhou for splittism, the first case where a Taiwanese resident was charged with this crime. His detention came hours after Tsai Ing-wen met with then-US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. China called the visit a “provocation” and condemned the United States for “seriously infringing on China’s sovereignty.”
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| A screenshot of Yang being detained by police in Wenzhou. Image credit: CCTV |
China’s state news media claimed that Yang was appointed as the head of the DPP youth league in Taichung and became a member of the splittist forces on the island. In 2019, he became the vice chairman of the now defunct Taiwan National Party, which advocated for “Taiwan independence” through a referendum. Also in 2019, he was allegedly invited by then-DPP president Chen Shui-bian to run for a seat in the island’s legislature, albeit unsuccessfully. Yang was similarly accused of colluding with splittist forces to support Hong Kong protesters amid the citywide civil unrest the same year.
Li Yanhe (李延贺)
On March 23, 2023, Taiwan-based publisher Li Yanhe was placed under residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL) for inciting splittism in Shanghai. RSDL is a coercive measure condemned by the United Nations Special Procedures as a form of enforced and involuntary disappearance. Under RSDL, a suspect can be held for up to six months incommunicado while being denied legal counsel or family visits.
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| Gusa Press publisher Li Yanhe. Image credit: CNA via Taiwan News |
Li was born in China but settled in Taiwan in 2009 after marrying a Taiwanese woman. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Gusa Publishing, which is known for publishing books on history and politics that are critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some critical titles focused on subjects like CCP corruption and infiltration of global media. In March 2023, he visited Shanghai to revoke his mainland residence registration and to visit relatives. He had applied for citizenship in Taiwan, but to do so he was required by Taiwan law to relinquish his mainland household registration.
Cheng Yu-chin (郑宇钦)
One day after China Central Television (CCTV) aired the confession of Lee Meng-chu in October 2020, Cheng Yu-chin appeared in another televised confession in which he admitted to using his academic post in the Czech Republic to carry out espionage against China. State news media sources accused Cheng of infiltrating Chinese mainland organizations in Europe and damaging China’s diplomatic ties with other countries. Cheng was placed under criminal detention in Zhengzhou, Fujian, for espionage in April 2019. On April 15, 2024, China’s National Security Education Day, the Ministry of State Security reported that Cheng had been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. He has two more years to serve before completing his sentence in April 2026.
Cheng claimed to be a member of the DPP and to have worked as an assistant to former DPP chairman Cho Jung-tai, but Cho rejected this claim and denied that he knew Cheng. Taiwan senior officials also came forward to rebuke false claims about Cheng’s case, adding that a Taiwanese associate said to have worked with Cheng did not even exist. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council blamed Beijing for making up the spy case. A Taiwanese professor familiar with Cheng also expressed disbelief that Cheng was a spy because Cheng had set up a company to help Chinese students gain admission to post-graduate programs in the Czech Republic. He had worked to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative during his stay in Europe.
Chen Shu-kai (陈树楷)
Dui Hua’s research discovered the case of Chen Shu-kai, who was detained for espionage in January 2017 and sentenced to 12 years and six months’ imprisonment with three years’ DPR in August 2020 in Xiamen. Chen was the chairman of the board of Bioil International Limited (Taiwan). While an official document stated that he received NTD700,000 from the Taiwan Military Intelligence Bureau to obtain 29 classified documents in China, Dui Hua could not find other sources to verify this official account in order to determine whether this is one of the many cases of arbitrary detention in China. He is currently incarcerated in a prison in Fujian. In 2023, the prison recommended a sentence reduction of four months be granted to Chen because he had demonstrated remorse. The sentence reduction, if approved, would shorten his release date to February 2029.
Pan-Blue Camp Also Targeted
In Taiwan, pan-blue refers to a political stance espoused by Kuomintang (KMT) supporters who favor a dual Taiwanese Chinese identity as well as friendly relations with China. However, people subscribing to the pan-blue view can still face arrest in China on charges of endangering state security. At least two pan-blue academics from Taiwan have been imprisoned in China in recent years.
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| Results from presidential elections for the past eight Taiwanese elections, showing changes in support for the Pan-Blue KMT and the DPP. Image credit: Emanuelamianstrolski / CC BY 4.0 |
Shih Cheng-ping (施正屏) is a retired professor at National Taiwan Normal University. Shih wrote op-eds critical of Tsai Ing-wen in the Taiwanese press. In August 2022, he completed his four-year sentence for espionage in Anhui. It is not known whether Shih has returned to Taiwan or is obliged to stay in China to serve his two-year DPR sentence, which will end in August 2024.
Shih disappeared after traveling to China in August 2018. His case came to light 15 months after his disappearance, when he appeared in a CCTV television program in October 2020 confessing to spying for Taiwan. In the recording, he admitted to passing information to Taiwan authorities from a mainland think tank in exchange for money. As with many other televised confessions, his was aired before he was found guilty by the court. This practice has been condemned by human rights groups as forced confessions under duress.
Pro-unification Taiwanese scholar Tsai Chin-shu (蔡金树) was convicted of Taiwanese espionage in July 2020, Tsai is a KMT member and has worked in multiple capacities to promote cross-strait exchanges. He served as director of the Kaohsiung Cross-Strait Exchanges Research Association and chaired the Southern Taiwan Union of Cross-Strait Relations Associations, which advocated for the Ma Ying-jeou administration’s policies of forging ties with China.
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| On January 13, 2024, Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party supporters watching the election results. Image credit: Cypp0847 / CC BY-SA 4.0 |
He was released from a prison in Fujian in May 2022. Like Lee Meng-chu, Tsai has been barred from returning to Taiwan because of the four-year DPR sentence that was imposed on him. In June 2023, Taiwanese news media sources reported that Tsai was placed under house arrest in Gulangyu Island of Xiamen.
China has a track record of making politically motivated arrests that observers call “hostage diplomacy.” Since the DPP won the 2016 presidential election, China and Taiwan have exchanged fiery rhetoric and denounced each other as threats to national security and social stability. Days after the DPP won the 2024 presidential election, China’s Ministry of State Security claimed it would intensify efforts to crack down on “subversion, espionage and splittist struggles” related to Taiwan. In June, judicial bodies and Ministry of State Security jointly issued a 22-point legal opinion against "Taiwan splittism" which threatens "trial in absentia" or even to impose the death penalty for “diehard” Taiwan independence splittists in extreme cases, and in August the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council added 10 Taiwanese to the list of die-hard splittists (nearly all are members of the DPP). At the time of writing, Taiwanese officials have confirmed to the media that 15 Taiwanese residents are currently held in China for various crimes, “including violations of the anti-secession law.” As cross-strait tensions escalate, more cases of arbitrary detention are likely to emerge, leaving citizens to pay the price for geopolitical hostility.
