China weighs legal techniques against 'diehard' supporters of Taiwan independence
25 November, 2020
China is considering drawing up a good blacklist of "diehard" supporters of Taiwan's independence, the government said on Wednesday (Nov 25), which may see Beijing try to take legal methods against democratically-elected President Tsai Ing-wen.
Taiwan condemned the plan following the pro-Beijing Hong Kong-based newspaper Ta Kung Pao earliest reported onto it this month. China's widely-read Global Circumstances tabloid has stated the list could include senior Taiwanese authorities officials.
China claims Taiwan as its territory. Taiwan's authorities says the island is already an independent country known as the Republic of China, its formal brand, although China rejects this job.
Zhu Fenglian, a good spokeswoman for China's Taiwan Affairs Business office, said the "set of diehard Taiwan secessionists" nowadays in mind was only targeted at a very few independence supporters and the ones who fund them.
"It is absolutely not aimed at almost all Taiwan compatriots," she told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
Zhu didn't give details or a period frame, saying simply that Beijing would have "targeted guidelines to severely punish relative to regulations" those it considered hardcore backers of independence.
Chinese media have said the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which mandates the use of force if China judges Taiwan to have declared independence, together with countrywide security legislation, could possibly be employed to charge those about the list.
It is unclear how that could play out, as Chinese courts haven't any jurisdiction in Taiwan, and Taiwan's government leaders usually do not visit China.
The movements follows Beijing's July unveiling of new national security laws and regulations for Hong Kong that prescribe sentences ranging up alive terms for crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
Separately, Zhu said a Chinese court this week sentenced a Taiwanese citizen to four years in prison for espionage.
Previous month, Chinese state television set ran a number of programmes featuring "confessions" by Taiwanese spies, which Taiwan described as entrapment and another reason for people to fear visiting China.
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