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BEIJING: China is considering drawing up a blacklist of “staunch” supporters of Taiwan independence, the government said on Wednesday (Nov. 25), which could cause Beijing to try to take legal action against democratically elected President Tsai Ing. -wen.
Taiwan condemned the plan after the Hong Kong-based pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao first reported on it this month. The widely read Chinese tabloid Global Times has said the list could include senior Taiwanese government officials.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory. The Taiwanese government says the island is already an independent country called the Republic of China, its formal name, although China rejects this position.
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Zhu Fenglian, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the “list of staunch Taiwan secessionists” now under consideration was only aimed at a very small number of independence supporters and those who fund them.
“It is not aimed at the vast majority of Taiwan compatriots at all,” he told a regular news conference in Beijing.
Zhu did not give details or a time frame, saying only that Beijing would take “specific measures to severely punish in accordance with the law” those it considered staunch supporters of independence.
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Chinese media have said that the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which mandates the use of force if China judges that Taiwan has declared independence, as well as national security legislation, could be used to indict those on the list.
It is unclear how that would play out, as Chinese courts do not have jurisdiction in Taiwan and Taiwanese government leaders do not visit China.
The move follows Beijing’s July presentation of new national security laws for Hong Kong that prescribe sentences ranging up to life in prison for crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
Separately, Zhu said that this week a Chinese court sentenced a Taiwanese national to four years in prison for espionage.
Last month, Chinese state television aired a series of programs with “confessions” by Taiwanese spies, which Taiwan described as a trap and another reason for people to fear visiting China.
