Getty ImagesCalls to denounce “diehard” Taiwanese secessionists, a hotline to report them, and penalties ranging up to the death penalty for “ringleaders” – Beijing’s familiar rhetoric against Taiwan is taking on a dangerous reality.
The democratically governed island has grown accustomed to China’s demands – even the planes and ships testing the country’s defenses have become a routine provocation – but recent moves to criminalize support for the country are unsettling Taiwanese living and working in China and those at home.
“I am currently planning to speed up my departure,” said a Taiwanese businesswoman living in China – shortly after the Supreme Court introduced changes that would allow life imprisonment and even the death penalty for those who support Taiwan’s independence.
“I don’t think we can make a mountain out of a molehill. The boundary has become very unclear,” says Prof. Chen Yu-Jie, a legal scholar at the Taiwanese Academia Sinica.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office immediately assured Taiwan’s 23 million people that this was not directed against them, but against an “extremely small number of die-hard independence activists.” The “vast majority of Taiwanese compatriots have nothing to fear,” the office said.
But suspicious Taiwanese say they are unwilling to verify the claim. The BBC spoke to several Taiwanese living and working in China who said they either plan to leave the country soon or have already left. Few were willing to give an official interview; none wanted to be named.
“Any statement you make now could be misunderstood and you could be reported. Even before this new law, China encouraged people to report others,” the businesswoman said.
This became official last week when Chinese authorities set up a website to identify Taiwanese public figures considered “diehard” separatists. The website included an email address where people could send “tips and crimes” about the named individuals or others they suspected.
Scholars believe that Beijing is seeking to replicate the success of Hong Kong’s national security laws, which are necessary for stability but have shaken the city’s democracy movement, with former lawmakers, activists and ordinary citizens critical of the government being imprisoned under them.
By turning pro-Taiwanese sentiments into a national security issue, Beijing hopes to “cut off the movement’s ties to the outside world and divide Taiwanese society into those who support Taiwan independence and those who do not,” says Professor Chen.
She believes the Supreme Court’s decision will almost certainly lead to the prosecution of some Taiwanese living in China.
“This statement has been sent to all levels of law enforcement across the country. This is our way of saying to them: We want to see more cases like this prosecuted, so go find one.”
Getty Images“We have to be even more cautious,” said a Taiwanese man living in Macau. He said he had always been prepared for threats, but the new legal arrangement had prompted his friends to express “concern” about his future in the Chinese city.
“In recent years, patriotic education has gained prominence in Macau, with more assertive statements on Taiwan leading to a more tense atmosphere compared to the pre-pandemic period,” he added.
Taiwan, which has powerful allies in the US, EU and Japan, opposes Beijing’s plans for “reunification,” but fears are growing that China’s Xi Jinping has accelerated the timetable for taking over the island, a stated goal of the Chinese Communist Party.
For more than 30 years, Taiwanese companies – iPhone maker Foxconn, chip giant TSMC and electronics giant Acer – have played a key role in China’s growth. The prosperity also attracted Taiwanese from across the strait looking for jobs and better prospects.
“I absolutely loved Shanghai when I moved there. It felt so much bigger, more exciting and more cosmopolitan than Taipei,” says Zoe Chu*. She spent more than a decade in Shanghai, managing foreign musicians who were in high demand in clubs and venues across China.
That was in the mid-2000s, when China was booming, attracting money and people from all over the world. Shanghai was at the heart of that boom – bigger, shinier and trendier than any other Chinese city.
“My friends from Shanghai were dismissive of Beijing. They called it the big village in the north,” Ms. Chu recalls. “Shanghai was the place to be. It had the best restaurants, the best nightclubs, the coolest people. I felt like a country bumpkin, but I learned quickly.”
Getty ImagesAt the end of this decade – in 2009 – more than 400,000 Taiwanese lived in China. By 2022, this number had fallen to 177,000, according to official Taiwan figures.
“China has changed,” says Ms. Chu, who left Shanghai in 2019. She now works for a medical company in Taipei and has no plans to return.
“I’m Taiwanese,” she explains. “It’s no longer safe for us there.”
The exodus of Taiwanese was triggered by the same factors that have caused large numbers of foreigners to leave China – a sluggish economy, growing hostility between Beijing and Washington and above all the sudden and comprehensive lockdowns during the Covid pandemic.
However, Taiwanese in China are also worried because the government does not consider them “foreigners,” making them particularly vulnerable to state repression.
Senior Taiwanese officials told the BBC that 15 Taiwanese citizens are currently being held in China for various alleged crimes, “including violations of the anti-secession law.”
In 2019 a Taiwanese businessman arrested for espionage after he was caught taking photos of police officers in Shenzhen – a charge he denied. He was only released last year. In April 2023, China confirmed that it arrested a Taiwan-based publisher for “endangering national security.” He remains in custody.
Amy Hsu*, who used to live and work in China, says her job now makes her afraid to even visit the country. After returning to Taiwan, she began volunteering with an NGO that helped people who had fled Hong Kong to settle in Taiwan.
“For me, it’s definitely more dangerous now,” she says. “In 2018, they started using surveillance cameras to fine people who ran red lights. The system could identify your face and send the fine directly to your address.”
She says the extent of the surveillance worries her – and she fears it could be used to track even visitors, especially those on a list of potential offenders.
Getty Images“Oh, I’m definitely on the list. I’m a die-hard independence advocate with lots of ideas,” laughs Robert Tsao, a 77-year-old tech billionaire who founded one of Taiwan’s largest chipmakers, United Micro-electronics Corporation (UMC).
Mr. Tsao was born in Beijing, but today he supports Taiwan’s independence and avoids not only China, but also Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand and even Singapore.
Mr Tsao has not always been hostile towards China. He was one of the first Taiwanese investors to build state-of-the-art chip factories in China. But the crackdown in Hong Kong has changed his mind, he says: “It was so free and vibrant and now it’s gone. And here they want to do the same to us.”
“This new ruling actually helps people like me,” he says. He believes it will backfire and strengthen Taiwanese resolve to resist China.
“They say the new law will only affect a few die-hard independence supporters like me, but so many Taiwanese are either for independence or for the status quo (keeping everything as it is), which is the same thing. That’s why we’ve all become criminals.”
* Names changed at the request of the contributors
