Beijing’s measures to encourage people to report so-called “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists” and other national security problems would affect Taiwanese business personnel and entertainers working in China the most, a Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official said yesterday.
The measure could also be used by people to destroy their business rivals and others they have a personal vendetta with, they said.
The Hong Kong Police Force last month said that as of June, it had received more than 750,000 reports of national security problems since it launched a hotline on Nov. 5, 2020, the council wrote on Facebook on Saturday last week.
Photo: Screen grab from the Mainland Affairs Council’s Facebook page
As of March 8, more than 700,000 reports were received via the hotline, the council said
This showed that the number of national security reports increased by 50,000 within just four months, it added.
Of the 750,000 national security-related reports, about 10 to 20 percent were effective investigative leads that the Hong Kong police could follow, the council said, adding that it is only a matter of time for them to pursue and arrest individuals and crack down on organizations involved in these cases.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan Affairs Office has recently added a new “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists” section on its Web site and set up an electronic mailbox for people to report such people, the council said.
“Reporting on Taiwanese independence separatists could become popular in China,” it said.
The measure would create more obstacles to the positive development of cross-strait relations and hinder normal interactions between people in Taiwan and in China. It also would not help facilitate goodwill exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, the council said.
“We think that China should do more work that contributes to positive interactions with Taiwan,” it said.
A council official told the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) that some people might use it to falsely accuse their business competitors and others they have grudges against.
Such a policy would hurt Taiwanese business personnel and entertainers the most, the official said.
So far, no Taiwanese have been pursued or arrested by Chinese police in third countries since Beijing published the 22 new guidelines on June 21, which would allow its courts to try in absentia and potentially impose a death penalty for “diehard Taiwanese independence separatists,” the official said.
“Our assessment is that Beijing would not make any moves before the end of this year. Whether it would take further action afterward remains to be seen,” the official said.
“We would ask people to avoid going to China, Hong Kong and Macao for their own personal safety,” the official added.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
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