The number of Chinese asylum seekers globally increased 700 percent from 2012 to 2020, while Beijing has employed various means to force the “involuntary return” of overseas fugitives, a report released yesterday by nongovernmental organization Safeguard Defenders said.
The report, titled Involuntary Returns: China’s Covert Operation to Force ‘Fugitives’ Overseas Back Home, exposes three methods employed by China to forcibly secure the return of Chinese fugitives and other targets abroad: threatening the fugitives’ family members in China, employing police officers or agents to target them, and kidnapping them.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had successfully returned at least 10,000 people since its launch of Operation Fox Hunt in mid-2014, but it “might just be the tip of the iceberg,” it said.
The report examined many cases, including that of Chinese political cartoonist Jiang Yefei (姜野飛).
Although he had been granted official refugee status by the UN Commission on Human Rights, Jiang was handed over to Chinese agents in 2015 when released from detention in Bangkok by Thai immigration authorities, the report said, adding that he was then “smuggled back to China,” where he remains in prison.
The use of state-sanctioned kidnapping, called “irregular methods” in Chinese, involves covert cooperation with host country forces to trick the target into heading to a third country where they can be extradited or simply handed over to Chinese agents for deportation without due process, it said, citing the example of Chinese human rights defender Dong Guangping (董廣平).
With involuntary returns, the CCP’s message is that there is no escape, it said, adding that fleeing overseas does not save a person, as nowhere is safe.
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took power and launched an anti-corruption campaign, the number of people leaving China has risen sharply, and the number of Chinese asylum seekers grew 700 percent between 2012 and 2000, it said, citing UN data.
China’s extraterritorial policing targets two types of people: those suspected of economic crimes, or crimes related to their official duties, and critics of the CCP, such as human rights advocates and other activists, the report said.
“The line between the two can often be blurred, as China usually presents such returns, or other forms of transnational repression, as related to economic crimes,” it added.
The report also examined how China is trying to legalize its hunting of fugitives by highlighting China’s National Supervision Law, which took effect in 2018.
Article 52 of the law states that the National Supervisory Commission would strengthen the coordination and organization of anti-corruption efforts, such as the international pursuit of stolen assets and fleeing persons, as well as the prevention of escape, the report said.
The article even lists kidnapping and entrapment as “irregular measures” to be used on occasion, which seems to have encouraged Chinese officials to adopt such measures, while this is unheard of in other countries, Safeguard Defenders coordinator and researcher Chen Yen-ting (陳彥廷) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
By publishing the report, the organization aims to raise international awareness about Beijing’s operations against overseas fugitives with the intent of pressuring Beijing into stopping such practices, he said.
In addition to members of the media, the report has been forwarded to government agencies and lawmakers in various countries, as well as international organizations, Chen said.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
RSS