Beijing confirms investigation of Taiwan-based publisher Li Yanhe as minister orders safeguard of national security

Mainland Affairs Council minister says Beijing ‘now has long-arm jurisdiction over Taiwan, which obviously shows intimidation and suppression’
Meanwhile, mainland State Security Minister Chen Yixin conducts inspection tour of Beijing bureau, calling on it to keep ‘core secrets’ safe

Espionage

Amber Wangin Beijing

Published: 3:07pm, 26 Apr, 2023

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Beijing says it is investigating Taiwan-based publisher Li Yanhe for allegedly “endangering national security”, as mainland authorities ramp up the use of security-related laws to punish individuals from the self-ruled island.

The announcement was made on Wednesday by Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office.

Li, who goes by the pen name Fucha, was born in mainland China’s northeastern province of Liaoning in 1971 and moved to Taiwan in 2009, where he established Gusa Publishing and produced books critical of Beijing.

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Confirmation that the state security body is investigating him comes days after Taiwanese media reported Li missing after he travelled to Shanghai in March to visit relatives.

Taiwanese Minister of Mainland Affairs Council Chiu Tai-san on Wednesday said the island’s government would discuss the case with Li’s relatives and offer them help. Chiu did not give further details of Li’s situation, according to Taiwanese outlet UDN News.

He said “the mainland now has long-arm jurisdiction over Taiwan, which obviously shows intimidation and suppression of Taiwan”.

Books published by Gusa, including People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen revisited about the Tiananmen protests in 1989, are known for being critical of Beijing’s human rights record.

The confirmation of Li’s detention comes amid rising tensions over Taiwan, and as Beijing is escalating its use of state security-related tools.

On Monday, mainland State Security Minister Chen Yixin ordered Beijing’s state security bureau to “severely crack down” on spy activity during an inspection tour.

Beijing was the “main battlefield” on which to fight infiltration, subversion and espionage activities, the spy chief told a grass-roots unit of the Beijing bureau. He said its work bore “heavy responsibilities and arduous tasks”.

During the inspection tour on Monday, he also called on the office to keep the country’s “core secrets” safe.

The Beijing state security bureau “must stand from the height of safeguarding national political security and maintaining core secret security, to build a systematic combat team … severely crack down on the infiltration, sabotage, subversion and separatist activities of hostile forces,” Chen said.

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Chen, who is believed to be a close confidant of President Xi Jinping, ordered the bureau to comprehensively strengthen its anti-espionage work to effectively prevent and defuse major risks while visiting the team and inspecting its counter-espionage equipment.

The tour was made public on Wednesday in an article published by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Communist Party’s top security body responsible for overseeing all law enforcement agencies, national security and intelligence systems.

The type of inspection undertaken by Chen’s secretive Ministry of State Security has rarely been disclosed in the past.

In addition to the case of publisher Li, several state security-related cases involving Taiwanese and Japanese have been made public by the ministry in recent weeks.

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Chinese authorities confirmed in March that a Japanese man had been detained on suspicion of engaging in spying activities and violating China’s counter-espionage law although they did not give details of the man’s suspected offence. Japanese media reported that the man worked in Beijing for the Japanese drug maker Astellas Pharma.

On Tuesday, Beijing announced that Taiwanese activist Yang Chih-yuan was officially arrested and would face “secession” charges, the first time a person from Taiwan faced charges of separatism in a mainland court amid strained cross-strait ties.

Mainland authorities accused Yang of being a long-time advocate of “Taiwan independence” and forming a pro-independence political party.

Beijing has seen an urgent need to safeguard its national security amid the geopolitical tensions.

Chen wrote an article for Qiushi magazine this month hailing Xi’s creation of “a new security landscape” that was first raised in the 20th party congress report last year.

“Major changes have taken place in the external environment and security pattern. Various predictable and unpredictable risks … and even stormy waves, have put forward higher requirements for national security work,” Chen wrote.

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On Wednesday, China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed an amendment to its anti-espionage law, although the full text has not been released.

According to an introduction last week by Zang Tiewei, spokesman for the NPC’s Legislative Affairs Committee, the amendment would for the first time list cyberattacks by a “spying entity or its surrogate” as an act of espionage.

Zang said the country’s anti-espionage struggle was “extremely severe”.

This month, Beijing announced a slew of espionage cases by surrogates recruited by foreign spy agencies and warned Chinese citizens to stay alert to such activities.