Over 600 Taiwanese were extradited from various countries to China between 2016 and 2019 in an effort to “undermine Taiwanese sovereignty”, rights group Safeguard Defenders said in a report on Tuesday.
Beijing has pressured foreign governments to deport hundreds of Taiwan nationals to China, a new report found, in what human rights activists describe as a “hunt for Taiwanese”.
More than 600 Taiwanese were extradited from various countries to China between 2016 and 2019 in an effort to “undermine Taiwanese sovereignty”, rights group Safeguard Defenders said in a report on Tuesday.
China claims self-ruled democratic Taiwan as its territory.
China and Taiwan agreed in 2009 that police from both sides would return overseas suspects to their respective territories. But Beijing began to increasingly ignore this agreement after the election of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.
Safeguard Defenders said Beijing had pressured governments to extradite hundreds of Taiwanese mostly accused of telecoms fraud to China, despite efforts by the Taiwan government and the UN Human Rights Council to prevent the forced transfers. Those extradited to China faced “arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and forced televised confessions”, the NGO said.
Separately, Chinese warplanes made 159 incursions into Taiwan’s air defence zone in November according to AFP’s database, the second-highest month on record.
EU unveils its €300bn answer to China’s BRI
The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday a plan to invest 300 billion euros globally by 2027 in infrastructure, digital and climate projects as a better alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The scheme, called Global Gateway, is to strengthen Europe’s supply chains, boost EU trade and help fight climate change, focusing on digitalisation, health, climate and energy and transport sectors, as well as education and research.
