Beijing's Fear of "Splittism"

"The Chinese police's stability maintenance methods directed toward me were becoming more and more cruel and crazy." 

"They detained me at will without following legal procedures, taking my cellphone and even giving me a psychiatric evaluation."

"I can no longer continue to accept the ravaging of my personal dignity, the trampling of my honour and the threat to my body."

"I am willing to wait for months, because I feel safe in Taiwan. I want to go to the United States. I think Taiwan is very safe and there are no security problems. Taiwan has democracy and liberty as its shelter, so Taiwan is safe for me personally. But security is not my first option in where I settle, I have a lot of work to do in the US."

Chen Siming, Chinese dissident, Taipei, Taiwan

Chinese dissident Cheng Siming is holed up in the transit lounge at Taiwan’s Taoyuan international airport. Photograph: AP

 

Chinese dissident, Chen Siming who habitually made it a practise to commemorate the1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989 in Beijing has fled China, arriving in Taiwan, searching for aid to enable him to seek asylum in the United States or Canada. He posted a video on Twitter, stating that he had arrived to the transit area at Taoyuan International Airport, in a bid to escape political persecution in China.

How he was able to make the trip, travelling to Taiwan remains unclear, but he explained he had left China on July 22. Self-governing Taiwan has its own concerns over persecution by Beijing which considers the island to be part of greater China and has plans to military invade at some point, to claim the sundered territory as its own which has been independent, calling itself the Republic of China since 1949.

Public memorials honouring the protesters who were killed in the 1989 crackdown -- launched by the Chinese Communist Party against Chinese citizens, mostly university students who advocated for democracy -- are forbidden by Beijing. Anyone who persists in recognizing the event attracts the attention of police, risking detention and/or arrest for their troubles.

According to Mr. Chen, in 2017, police took him into detention custody and that has been repeated every year since then in reaction to his annual commemoration of the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown and the death of thousands of protesters. The shortest length of time he was detained in prison was for week's punishing stay, as opposed to longer stretches of time that tended to 15 days at a time.

 

Chen Siming sits beside a notice that reads ‘Commemorate June 4 on 2021 June 4’ in central China’s Hunan province on that day. Photograph: AP

 

Authorities in Hunan province detained Chen in May, following a posting he made on social media to commemorate the crackdown. State security police harassment over the years during "sensitive periods" around the anniversary date have been relentless. Human Rights Defenders, a Chinese rights group, believes Mr. Chen was held in a detention centre in Zhuzhou, Hunan province.

"If Chen Siming is returned to China he faces an almost certain risk of detention, torture and other ill-treatment, and an unfair trial", stated William Nee, research and advocacy coordinator for the rights group, urging Taiwan to assist Chen in his search for asylum abroad. 

Rahile Dawut   Dui Hua Foundation/Lisa Ross

Rahile Dawut, a Uyghur academic who disappeared six years ago during Beijing's crackdown in Xinjiang, hasn't been merely harassed, her life made miserable. She was given a life sentence in prison, according to Dui Hua, a California-based human rights group that advocates for political prisoners in China.  The 57-year-old professor, a leading scholar on Uyghur folklore, was convicted in 2018 on charges of endangering state security through her promotion of "splittism".

China is devoted to the principle of 'harmony', that all its 1.3 billion residents representing a large population of varied ethnic, social and religious groups from Tibetan Buddhists to Chinese Christians, to Muslim Turkmen and Uyghurs, integrate into Han Chinese society. "Splittism", the movement of Tibetans to have their autonomy restored, or Muslims their homelands carved out of the forced union with China, is viewed as subversive.

Ms. Dawut lost an appeal of her sentence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region High People's Court. She ranks among over 300 intellectuals, artists and writers detained in Xinjiang, a reflection of a government campaign whose aim is to assimilate China's Muslim minority -- to promote ethnic harmony. In other words, erase any vestiges of an alter-culture, -religion, or -society.