In early September, the Chinese government sentenced Taiwanese independence activist Yang Chih-yuan to nine years of imprisonment. Yang is one of the co-founders of the relatively obscure Taiwan National Party, which is not very well-known among pro-Taiwanese independence organizations. But the case is notable as the first time that a Taiwanese national was sentenced for separatism, after years of China warning about such charges against advocates of independence.
Yang was a participant in the 2008 Wild Strawberry Movement and the 2013 “Fury” protests, both of which were against actions by then-President Ma Ying-jeou seen as steering Taiwan uncomfortably close to China. Likewise, Yang was a participant in the Taiwan Action Party Alliance, a pro-independence political party formed under the auspices of former President Chen Shui-bian that dissolved in 2020. However, reports also indicate that Yang was close to the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), a pro-unification political party with links to the Bamboo Union gang, and that the CUPP attempted to recruit him as a political candidate.
Regardless of the oddities of his links to the CUPP, apparently harboring pro-independence views does not appear to have dissuaded Yang from traveling to China in January 2022 for a Go tournament. Yang did not have a high public profile at the time he traveled to China, which may have been why he was willing to travel to China.
Yang disappeared in January. It only became known that he had been detained by the Chinese government when he appeared on Chinese state-run media during his imprisonment in August 2022. As this was around the time of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the Chinese military drills directed at Taiwan that followed, it was thought that the release of information on Yang’s whereabouts was deliberately timed to intimidate Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) stated that Yang’s family had not contacted them about his detention, which may be one of the reasons why his whereabouts did not come to light earlier. Family members of Taiwanese imprisoned in China for political reasons sometimes keep quiet, fearing that public attention would lengthen their relatives’ jail sentences.
It was only in April 2023 – well over a year after Yang’s original detention – that further details about the arrest came to light. The Beijing Daily reported that the Supreme People’s Procuratorate had approved Yang’s arrest, after an investigation by the National Security Bureau of Wenzhou, Zhejiang. Yang was held under Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location, a form of detention in which Chinese authorities are not required to notify family members, and the government is not required to disclose where prisoners are held. At the time, Yang was accused of crimes linked to separatism, including being part of an “illegal organization” that aspired toward Taiwanese independence and Taiwan’s membership in the United Nations.
However, it would be another year and half until Yang was formally sentenced. The timing of Yang’s sentencing, after over two and a half years of imprisonment by China, may also be deliberate.
Yang’s sentencing takes place amid other moves by the Chinese government aimed at signaling a harder line against advocates of Taiwanese independence. In June, Chinese courts announced legal guidelines that included the use of capital punishment for “ringleaders” of Taiwanese independence separatists.
This would not be the first time that some form of the death penalty was suggested for Taiwanese independence advocates. In 2023, at a session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, essayist and blogger Zhou Xiaoping proposed that China could draw up a “kill list” of Taiwanese independence advocates to be executed during a “Special Military Operation.”
But while such proposals may be aimed at striking fear into the hearts of Taiwanese, it has been more common for the Chinese government to sanction individuals it frames as separatists. In the past, this has led high-ranking Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians such as Su Tseng-chang, Joseph Wu, and Yu Shyi-kun, as well as media commentators such as Huang Shih-tsung, Lee Zheng-hao, Liu Bao-jie, Wang Yi-chuan, and Yu Pei-chen to face sanctions preventing them and their family members from traveling to China or doing business with Chinese entities.
More recently, the website for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office rolled out a new section listing ten “diehard Taiwanese independence separatists.” Apart from some of the prior named individuals, this includes Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, Minister of Defense Wellington Koo, former Sunflower Movement student leader Lin Fei-fan, and others. This section also features an email address to submit information on these individuals.
This list highlighted politicians who are already household names in Taiwan. However, the new legal guidelines released in June stated those who “extensively distort and falsify the fact that Taiwan is a part of China in the fields of education, culture, history, and news media” could face punishment. This was seen as potentially indicating that China might target media, academics, or commentators with punitive measures, rather than just politicians. After all, some of China’s sanctions previously targeted media commentators.
This points to the significance of Yang’s sentencing: The first Taiwanese national sentenced by China on separatism charges was not a well-known figure, but a little-known individual. Although Beijing may not have had access to other pro-independence Taiwanese – who knew better than to travel to China – it’s also notable that some of the individuals held by China on political charges in previous years were actually of the pan-Blue camp, such as pro-unification academic Tsai Chin-shu or academic and China Times columnist Shih-Cheng-ping.
Yang’s sentencing came at the same time as ongoing national security charges in Hong Kong against politicians, journalists, and others. Still, Yang’s sentencing, as with events in Hong Kong, has attracted relatively little attention in Taiwan in a news cycle still dominated by daily reports on corruption charges against Taiwan People’s Party chair and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je.
Taiwan’s MAC raised its alert level warning on the potential dangers of travel to China after the legal guidelines threatening the use of the death penalty against Taiwanese independence advocates. A warning was also issued when news of Yang’s arrest broke. The MAC has also emphasized that views that are politically moderate and pro-status quo in Taiwan could potentially be perceived as pro-independence by Chinese authorities. It is to be seen if Yang’s sentencing leads to other arrests of Taiwanese in China.