(Bloomberg) — China is likely to arrest more Taiwanese people under a law targeting independence supporters in an effort to ramp up pressure on the new president, the island’s top security officials said.
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A recent move by Beijing to develop the law amounted to weaponizing domestic law against Taiwan, the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, said at a briefing in Taipei on Friday. The officials were speaking based on assessments from Taiwan’s national security apparatus, rather than on information they had gathered.
There have been 15 arrests in recent years, officials said. Taiwanese could be taken into custody in China, they added, or in places that had extradition treaties with the country, although that scenario has not yet materialized. Any arrests would worsen relations between the two sides of the Strait, they added.
The comments indicate that China may be showing its displeasure with Lai, which it says is pushing for independence from the U.S.-backed island that it vowed to eventually control, if necessary by force.
China has taken a series of measures to put pressure on Lai since he won elections in January. It split from one of its last diplomatic allies, Nauru, and then held its most extensive military exercises in a year around Taiwan just days after Lai took office in May. China also condemned Secretary of State Antony Blinken for congratulating Lai on taking office, and gave five Taiwanese political commentators largely symbolic sanctions for “fomenting hostility and confrontation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.”
Last month, Taiwan raised its travel warning for China to the second-highest level, citing Beijing’s decision to expand laws threatening the death penalty for “separatists” on the island. It said recent incidents of Taiwanese people being detained in China were a factor in raising the alert level.
Beijing is still holding a Taiwanese man whose boat disappeared in fog off China in March. The man was serving in Taiwan’s military when he was detained, though his family asked for and received his discharge, a move likely intended to facilitate his release.
Cross-strait travel has struggled to recover since the pandemic, but there is some travel between the two sides. While Taiwan is about 100 km from China, many of the islets it controls are much closer, bringing their populations into close contact with each other.
In 2017, a Chinese court sentenced a Taiwanese democracy activist to five years in prison. Lee Ming-che was found guilty of undermining state power after visiting across the strait.
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