China bars wife of detained Taiwanese activist from visiting
TAIPEI: The wife of a Taiwanese prodemocracy activist detained in China said Monday that she was prevented from flying to the mainland to seek a visit with her husband, whose case has inflamed tensions between the sides that have already sunk to their lowest level in years.
Lee Ching-yu said airline staff told her when she tried to check in for her flight that Beijing authorities had canceled her Chinese-issued travel permit. Ching-yu was hoping to fly to China to demand information about her husband, Lee Ming-che, who has not been heard from since March 19. BEIJING: Budding Chinese sleuths could start stalking foreigners as suspected spies in Beijing after authorities in the city on Monday offered a cash bonanza for information on overseas agents.
Members of the public can report suspected espionage through a special hotline, by mail or in person and will be rewarded with up to 500,000 yuan ($72,460) in compensation if their intelligence is deemed useful.
The average annual wage in Beijing in 2015 was 85,000 yuan, according to the most recent data available from the city government.
“Citizens play an important role in spy investigations,” said a statement from the city’s security bureau, in the latest sign of concern about foreign agents in the capital.
Cartoon posters began appearing in Beijing public offices last spring warning Chinese women against falling for the romantic wiles of foreign men with undercover motives.
A 16-panel poster titled “Dangerous Love” showed a blossoming relationship between a Chinese government worker named Xiao Li and a visiting scholar, “David.”
Their thwarted happy ending takes the form of a visit to the police station when the pair is arrested after Xiao Li gives David secret internal documents from her government workplace.
The new incentives for whistleblowers will be implemented ahead of China’s sec-
A Chinese official said last week that Ming-che was under investigation on suspicion of endangering Chinese national security and was in “good physical condition,” but offered no additional information. Ching-yu says her husband suffers from hypertension and has asked that medication be provided to him.
Ming-che, a college employee who used the WeChat social media platform to discuss China-Taiwan relations, is the first Taiwanese activist in years to be held by China on security charges. His colleagues said his account on WeChat — a mainland China-based service used broadly in ond annual National Security Education Day on April 15.
Sources can choose to remain anonymous and request police protection for themselves and their relatives.
Those who deliberately provide false information will be punished, the security bureau said.
The Beijing Morning Post wrote on Monday that the “extensive mobilization of the masses” will contribute to the construction of an “anti-spy steel Great Wall.”
The newspaper reported that a fisherman in eastern Jiangsu province received a “heavy” reward after notifying the authorities of a suspicious device in the water bearing a “foreign language.”
The device was being used to collect data for a foreign party, according to the Beijing Morning Post.
The Chinese government often declares threats from “hostile foreign forces” as a justification for censorship and crackdowns on civil society.
Peter Dahlin, a Swedish human rights activist operating out of Beijing, was detained for 23 days and then expelled from the country in January 2016 for allegedly posing a threat to national security.
Dahlin’s group offered training to lawyers who have tried to use the tightly-controlled judiciary to redress apparent government abuses.
The most recent national census, held in 2010, recorded 600,000 expats living in China. the Chinese-speaking world — had been shut down by Chinese authorities in mid2016, suggesting he had attracted government attention.
Ming-che, 42, formerly worked for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has advocated for Taiwan’s formal independence. He was due to meet a friend in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on March 19 but never arrived.
China cut off its already limited contacts with Taiwan’s government in June, five months after the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen was elected president. Since then, China has been seen as further restricting the island’s already limited diplomatic breathing space while bringing economic pressure to bear.
Trailed by a scrum of supporters and media, Ching-yu was turned away at the check-in counter by an Air China employee who said the airline had been informed by Beijing that her permit to visit the mainland had been voided, without providing details. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and requires the island’s residents to use a document called a Taiwan Compatriots Pass rather than their passport when traveling to the mainland.