(Bloomberg) — China has drafted laws aimed at punishing supporters of Taiwan’s independence, a move aimed at ramping up pressure on the island’s new president.
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Activities that could lead to guilty convictions include promoting Taiwan’s membership in international organizations and conducting official exchanges and military contacts with other countries, according to a legal opinion issued Friday by China’s Supreme Court, the prosecutor general and several government ministries.
Trials can be held without the suspects present, the opinion said. It also includes penalties for specific crimes, ranging from imprisonment to the death penalty.
The advisory did not mention Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, new President Lai Ching-te or his predecessor. Tsai Ingwen. But they have worked to raise the global profile of the democratically governed island that China vowed to keep under its control.
They have also sought to boost the Taiwanese military’s ability to deter a Chinese invasion, especially with U.S. help, and have received visits from a slew of U.S. lawmakers.
Tsai’s meetings with two leading US lawmakers prompted the People’s Liberation Army to hold major military exercises around Taiwan. China held similar exercises after Lai was inaugurated last month, part of a series of pressure tactics the country has employed since his election.
The guidelines are not aimed at the majority of people in Taiwan, but at “only a small group of die-hard separatists,” Chen Binhua, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, said in a briefing on Friday.
Beijing used similar language when it hit Taiwanese officials with sanctions in recent years. One of them, Hsiao Bi-khim, is now vice president.
In May, China said it would hit five Taiwanese political commentators with mainly symbolic sanctions. Their comments would “incite hostility and confrontation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.”
The latest legal advice indicates that Beijing may continue to target media figures on the island who do not toe its line. One clause says that people who “willfully distort or tamper with the fact that Taiwan is part of China in the areas of education, culture, history and news media” are subject to punishment.
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