Advertisement
Advertisement
Lee Ching-yu, wife of Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che jailed in China, answers questions during a press conference on March 28, 2019, as she arrives at Taoyuan International Airport. China banned her from visiting her husband in jail for three months, because of alleged improper behaviour. Photo: AP
Opinion
Opinion
by Yu-Jie Chen and Jerome A. Cohen
Opinion
by Yu-Jie Chen and Jerome A. Cohen

Beijing must come clean on arbitrary detention of Taiwanese or risk hurting its soft power ambitions

  • Since 2017, at least four Taiwanese have been arbitrarily detained in mainland China and isolated from family and lawyers because of a breakdown in cross-strait relations
  • International pressure is losing effectiveness as China grows in economic clout but Beijing’s intransigence will only damage its international standing.
On March 19, 2017, Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che vanished after entering mainland China. Ten days later, after repeated calls from Taiwan concerning Lee’s whereabouts, the Chinese government admitted that Lee had been detained on suspicion of “endangering national security”.
Since then, three similar cases have been confirmed. Lee Meng-chu, a volunteer organiser in a small Taiwan township, disappeared in Shenzhen last August, allegedly after distributing photos of Chinese military vehicles near the Hong Kong border. Two Taiwanese scholars, Tsai Jin-shu and Shih Cheng-ping, disappeared in 2018 but their detentions were not confirmed until last year.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office claimed that all three are under investigation for national security offences pending trial. Will other cases be confirmed?

Taiwanese accused in China’s criminal justice system suffer, not only because the system is rife with serious violations of the most fundamental human rights, such as freedom from arbitrary detention and torture, access to independent counsel and the right to a fair trial, but also because Beijing’s cut-off of official cross-strait contacts renders detained Taiwanese totally isolated.
When Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, President Xi Jinping unilaterally suspended implementation of some major cross-strait agreements concluded with Taiwan’s previous administration.
Xi’s suspension, designed to increase pressure on Tsai to recognise the 1992 consensus that there is one China, undermined the implementation of the 2009 agreement on mutual judicial assistance. Thus, the Chinese government failed to notify Taiwan of recent detentions or offer any assistance to facilitate family visits to the detainees, as required by the agreement.

Each time a detention was belatedly acknowledged, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office broke the news in press conferences, rather than via the official channel prescribed by the agreement.

Beijing’s compliance with the notification requirement would have permitted Taiwan to promptly learn about the detentions, obtain further information and register any protests. It would have also enabled family visits. China’s violations of these basic protections left the detainees helpless.

Taiwanese under criminal investigation in mainland China are easily subject to the feared “residential surveillance at a designated location”, as they do not tend to maintain a residence on the mainland. While this may sound innocuous, in practice, it is institutionalised disappearance. Individuals are confined incommunicado at an undisclosed location for as long as six months with no opportunity to see family or lawyers.
During this “residential surveillance”, they can be interrogated by the police at any time, which often leads to torture and coerced confessions. Lee Ming-che, for example, supposedly confessed both during his long detention and his well-rehearsed trial.

There is very little that families in Taiwan can do for detained loved ones. Even if detainees avoid residential surveillance and are processed in normal detention centres, police can still refuse lawyers’ requests for client meetings simply by claiming that it is a matter of national security.

Moreover, as shown by Lee Ming-che’s case, as well as those involving many Chinese nationals, in politically sensitive cases, the Chinese government usually insists on appointing defence lawyers who can be relied upon not to challenge the charges, conduct a serious investigation or attempt to present witnesses at trial. In any event, the court is openly controlled by the Communist Party.

What can the international community do for those arbitrarily detained in China, whether Chinese or foreigners? Lee Ming-che’s courageous wife, Lee Ching-yu, with the help of Taiwanese civic groups, has done an admirable job in mobilising international human rights experts to express concerns to Beijing, although it turns a deaf ear.
There was a time, after the death of Mao Zedong, when China was eager to improve the world’s perception of its human rights record. In the 1980s to 1990s, when Beijing sought continuing access to the American market and entry into the World Trade Organisation, it sometimes released Chinese and foreign political prisoners because of outside pressures. Today, such pressures are brushed aside by an increasingly assertive, nationalistic regime.
Moreover, China seems to be gaining greater influence over the United Nations’ and other international efforts to protect human rights, especially in view of the US withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council, demonstrating official American indifference to the challenge.

From Singapore to Sweden, China’s influence campaign is backfiring

While awaiting an improvement in cross-strait relations and a moderation of Beijing’s repression, perhaps the most that can be done – for all victims of arbitrary detention in China – is to enhance world knowledge of these violations of human rights and international obligations, and summon enlightened opinion in opposition.

China will never achieve its soft power goals when its legal system is plagued by injustice. The protests in Hong Kong, triggered by an extradition bill that would have allowed the rendition of criminal suspects to mainland China, are but one example of the importance that people attach to justice.

Certainly, the people of Taiwan will continue to demand that Beijing at least live up to the modest commitments made in the cross-strait mutual judicial assistance agreement. Will the world settle for less?

Yu-Jie Chen, a Taiwan lawyer, is a Global Academic Fellow at Hong Kong University’s Faculty of Law and an affiliated scholar of NYU’s US-Asia Law Institute. Jerome A. Cohen, adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is professor of law at NYU and founding director of its US-Asia Law Institute

Purchase the China AI Report 2020 brought to you by SCMP Research and enjoy a 20% discount (original price US$400). This 60-page all new intelligence report gives you first-hand insights and analysis into the latest industry developments and intelligence about China AI. Get exclusive access to our webinars for continuous learning, and interact with China AI executives in live Q&A. Offer valid until 31 March 2020.

Post