China threatens death penalty for Taiwan ‘separatists’

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China has officially defined behaviour aimed at Taiwan independence as a criminal act, threatening punishments up to the death penalty for perpetrators, in a move that analysts said would further inflame tensions across the Strait.

The Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the ministries for public security and state security and the justice ministry jointly announced on Friday “guidelines for punishing ‘Taiwan independence’ diehard separatists for committing crimes of secession and the incitement of secession”.

The new rules lay out the general definition of the crimes, and the standards for punishment on the basis of existing law such as China’s criminal code, its Criminal Procedure Law and the 2005 Anti-Secession Law aimed at Taiwan, state news agency Xinhua said.

The new rules defined Taiwan independence as a crime under Chinese laws for the first time, analysts said.

In severe cases, such as “plotting independence with the help of external forces”, the death penalty applies, Sun Ping, deputy head of the legal department of the Ministry for Public Security, said at a press conference in Beijing, according to Taiwanese media.

While the move was mostly symbolic, as Beijing does not have jurisdiction over Taiwan — which has its own government, borders, military and courts — it could discourage Taiwanese citizens from travelling to China, as well as make travel to other countries riskier.

“This announcement has a threefold purpose: they aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence’, they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese,” said Chang Wu-yueh, an expert on cross-Strait relations at Tamkang University in Taipei.

Chang said Taiwanese also needed to carefully consider travel to third countries that have extradition agreements with China.

The People’s Republic of China insists that Taiwan is part of its territory — a claim Taipei rejects — and threatens to annex the island by force if Taiwan refuses to submit under its control indefinitely.

Since Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, a staunch defender of Taiwan’s de facto independence, took office last month, Beijing has stepped up bellicose rhetoric, conducting military exercises close to Taiwan and increasing efforts to engage the country’s opposition. China has previously denounced Lai as a “dangerous separatist”.

Taiwan’s government has repeatedly warned its citizens against travelling to China, including Hong Kong, since Beijing imposed a national security law on the city in 2020, which covers broadly defined crimes of terrorism, secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces.

While Chinese courts have no reach over Taiwanese at home, the new guidelines could also have a chilling effect on Chinese citizens and companies, which will be forced to consider whether Taiwanese citizens they deal with could fall under the provisions.

Taiwan’s government said Beijing’s move “will only provoke confrontation between the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, seriously affect [cross-Strait] exchanges”. The Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan’s cabinet-level China policy body, called it an “uncivilised and crude provocation to countries around the world that love Taiwan and support Taiwan’s freedom and democracy”.

A senior Taiwanese government official said the new rules also suggested that any citizen of a third country who spoke up in defence of Taiwan’s free and democratic status quo — such as US lawmakers who frequently visit Taipei — would be at risk of Chinese criminal prosecution.

China’s criminal code already includes provisions covering secession. But the Taiwan-specific Anti-Secession Law says that “the state shall never allow the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces to make Taiwan secede from China under any name or by any means”.

The new guidelines set out the practice for applying criminal law to the Taiwan context, and distinguish between “plotting independence with the help of external forces”, “plotting independence through military force” and “implementing de jure ‘Taiwan independence’”, Xinhua said.