Taiwan raises travel alert level to China following new legal guidelines on ‘Taiwan independence’ – The Diplomat

Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) raised the alert level for travel to China, Macau and Hong Kong to “orange” on Thursday last week. “Orange” is the second highest alert level in Taiwan’s four-level travel warning system; it warns Taiwanese against all non-essential travel to these countries.

This is a rare move given the high volume of travel between Taiwan and China, whether for business, tourism, family visits or other reasons.

The increased travel warning came after China announced a set of legal guidelines At the end of June, the death penalty was imposed on “diehard” supporters of Taiwanese independence. The death penalty is reserved for the “ringleaders” of Taiwanese independence, who otherwise face up to ten years or life imprisonment.

The new legal guidelines therefore point to a punishment of Taiwanese political leaders. Experts have the view taken that they were an attempt at intimidation. In a congressional hearing on June 27, Daniel Kritenbrink, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, said also expressed concern about the guidelines.

In the past, China has struck senior politicians of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) by banning them or their relatives from entering China or doing business with Chinese companies. In September 2021, the Chinese government announced that then-Premier Su Tseng-chang, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and President of the Legislative Yuan Yu Shyi-kun would face such bans. However, this was mostly a symbolic move, as Su, Wu and Yu or members of their families were unlikely to travel to China or attempt to do business with Chinese companies anyway. The ban may also have been a warning to Taiwanese doing business with China not to interfere in Taiwanese politics on the side of the pan-green camp.

At the time, however, the Chinese government also framed the ban as a response to the “tireless” independence advocates Su, Wu and Yu. The ban was also understood as an attempt to portray the DPP’s political leaders as pro-independence extremists. Given China’s recent policies, a similar effort may be underway, especially given the measures announced a month after Lai Ching-te was inaugurated as president.

What is even more concerning, however, is that the guidelines also stipulate penalties for people who “seriously distort and falsify the fact that Taiwan is part of China in the fields of education, culture, history, and news media.” This raises the question of whether the new guidelines will also affect ordinary Taiwanese who may not be politically active. For example, Taiwan’s high school curriculum could potentially be portrayed by China as a historical “distortion,” and in this way, teachers could potentially be targeted under the new guidelines.

In this respect, the legal guidelines can be seen as an extension of previous measures taken by the Chinese government. Following the ban on Su, Wu and Yu in September 2021, the Chinese government announced sanctions against Huang Shih-tsung, Lee Zheng-hao, Liu Bao-jie, Wang Yi-chuan and Yu Pei-chen and their family members in May 2024. Wang Yi-chuan is a DPP politician and Yu Pei-chen is a retired major general who later became a Taoyuan City Councilor. However, Huang Shih-tsung, Liu Bao-jie and Lee Zheng-hao are media commentators, so their inclusion on the list expanded the circle of Taiwanese that the Chinese government specifically targeted with sanctions.

Curiously, Huang Shih-chung is the most frequent guest on pan-blue networks, and Lee Zheng-hao and Yu Pei-chan are former members of the KMT. Lee in particular was expelled from the KMT for criticizing the KMT’s 2020 presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu. It is not clear whether the Chinese government misunderstood the political views of these individuals or whether it wanted to demonstrate that members of the pan-blue camp may face sanctions if they do not sufficiently toe the line.

It remains to be seen whether the new legal guidelines will build on previous sanctions or bans and expand the scope of independence lawsuits. The pan-green camp has compared China’s new legal guidelines to the national security law implemented in Hong Kong, warning that they would set a precedent for future legal action against Taiwanese.

The Chinese government criticized The Lai government criticized the increase in the alert level for travel to China, claiming that the Lai government was unnecessarily trying to stoke fears about China for political reasons.

Nevertheless, according to MAC spokesman Liang Wen-chieh in comments A radio broadcast reported that a Taiwanese businessman is currently being detained in China under the national security law.

Later comments MAC reports indicate that 15 Taiwanese citizens have been arrested by China in recent years. Details about these individuals are not always publicly known, especially in cases where family members choose not to inform the media about arrests or detentions, or in some cases not to inform the MAC. However, some of the known cases also involve reunification advocates such as Academician Tsai Jin-shuOther cases involved Chinese nationals who had acquired Taiwanese citizenship, such as Publisher and editor Fucha, and reports at the end of 2023 that a Chinese member One of the members of a Tsai Ing-wen support group who had acquired Taiwanese citizenship through marriage was arrested in China.

Later reports suggested that a Taiwanese man named Chen Po-wei, born in 1985, had been questioned by customs upon entering Hong Kong. This appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, as the man’s name in pinyin is the same as that of former Taiwan Statebuilding Party lawmaker Chen Po-wei, and he was born in the same year as the former lawmaker. Comments to the media, Interviewee Chen Po-wei said he would not change his name but would reconsider future trips to China.

This case proved unusual, although there have been cases in the past in which Taiwanese activists, academics and others have been denied entry to Hong Kong.

It is currently unclear how the new legal guidelines will be applied in China, but the period immediately following Lai’s inauguration could be a time of heightened sensitivity as China seeks a show of force against Taiwan – not just in the form of military exercises. as it happened in the days after the inauguration, but also legal measures directed against Taiwanese citizens.