Hundreds of Taiwanese ‘disappear’ in China over past 10 years

Read related stories in Mandarin: 10年来857名台湾人在中国被失踪或任意逮捕 and 强迫失踪在中国：纪念日背后的无尽悲痛与抗争 

More than 800 nationals of democratic Taiwan have “disappeared” over the past 10 years in China, which has long used forced disappearances to silence and control its own dissidents and rights activists, rights groups said on Friday.

Figures compiled by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and several other non-government groups showed that 857 Taiwan nationals have been “forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily arrested” in China, activists told a joint news conference in Taipei.

They include publisher Li Yanhe (pen name Fu Cha), detained in Shanghai since April 2023, democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year jail term in Hunan province for “attempting to subvert state power,” and businessman Lee Meng-Chu, jailed for nearly two years for “espionage” after he snapped photos of People’s Armed Police personnel at a Shenzhen hotel at the height of the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

Speaking on the United Nations’ International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Taiwan Association for Human Rights chief Eeling Chiu called on China to fulfill its obligations under international human rights law.

“China should … immediately release those who have been forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained,” Chiu told journalists, calling on the Taiwan authorities to ratify United Nations conventions against torture and enforced disappearances as soon as possible.

“[They should also] actively assist the families of those who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in China and set up assistance mechanisms for them,” she said.

Activist Wang Chia-hsuan of a petition group in support of Li Yanhe, or Fu Cha, said Li was born in China but had permanent residency in Taiwan at the time of his disappearance, having lived in Taipei for more than a decade.

He has been incommunicado for 527 days, and has been detained on suspicion of “incitement to secession,” Wang said.

He called on Taipei municipal authorities to step up efforts to communicate with the Chinese authorities regarding Li’s case.

Lee Ming-cheh told the news conference that his disappearance and subsequent jailing put huge pressure on his family back home.

“Collaborators with the Chinese government in Taiwan warned my wife off talking to Taiwanese NGOs or speaking out publicly about my case, saying they would allow her to travel to China to visit me [if she complied],” he said.

“If she spoke publicly about my case, she wouldn’t be allowed to go to China,” Lee said, accusing the Chinese government of abusing current crime cooperation agreements with Taiwan to persecute its residents.

Negotiating is key

Ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Puma Shen said the Taiwanese authorities could do a better job of negotiating in the early stages of such cases.

“Government officials … should call on China for more appropriate handling of [such] cases,” Shen said. “If that doesn’t happen, then we should cut off communication [with China].”

“If we continue to communicate past that point, there will be no deterrence at all … and it will send the message that it’s OK if our people keep disappearing,” he said.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese lawmaker Hung Shen-han warned that it’s not only Taiwanese who are at risk of arbitrary arrest and “disappearance” in China.

“The risk to individuals of being disappeared and prosecuted in China don’t just apply to Taiwanese,” Hung said, adding that some democratic countries have issued travel advisories to their citizens on the matter.

“The Chinese government uses its laws, along with various undemocratic and unsupervised practices, to threaten the personal safety of people from all countries who go to China,” he said.

“Chinese citizens themselves face the same problem.”

Geng He, the U.S.-based wife of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said it has been seven years since he “disappeared” on Aug. 13, 2017.

“Gao Zhisheng has been missing for seven years and 17 days, with no news or explanation, neither verbal nor written,” she told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

“They deploy the whole state apparatus in its entirety to target people like Gao Zhisheng who speak the truth and work on behalf of the people,” Geng said.

The couple’s entire family has also been affected, she said.

“My entire family’s ID cards have been confiscated for the past 15 years now,” Geng said. “This has caused great inconvenience to my family in terms of their ability to work, go about their lives, access medical treatment and travel.”

“They’re being controlled to death,” Geng said. “Basically, they can’t leave their homes.”

Gao’s sister died by suicide in May 2020, while his brother-in-law also took his own life after being forced to beg the authorities to “borrow” his own ID card so he can access his cancer medication.

Veteran rights lawyer Bao Longjun said the authorities have also “disappeared” his wife Wang Yu, also a prominent rights attorney, on several occasions in recent years. She was incommunicado for several hours on Wednesday during the trial of rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and activist Xu Yan in Suzhou.

“I feel like it’s about ruling the country through terror,” Bao told RFA Mandarin. “There is no legal basis for [enforced disappearances].”

“If you are even slightly disobedient, they will immediately bring state power to bear, forcibly restricting your freedom, and controlling you to achieve what they think is stability,” he said.

Uyghurs and Tibetans

Chinese authorities have also forcibly disappeared Uyghurs and Tibetans in the far-western part of mainland China.

An estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang under flimsy pretexts during mass incarcerations that began more than seven years ago in an effort by Chinese authorities to prevent religious extremism, separatism and terrorism.

Former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Teyip, who himself vanished in 2017 amid rumors he had run afoul of China’s increasingly hardline policies in Xinjiang, told RFA that he has had no news about his brother, Nury, who also fell victim to an enforced disappearance.

Teyip, who now lives in the U.S. state of Virginia, said he has lost faith in the United Nations and international human rights organizations which did little to help except release a statement.

“I haven’t received any information from them regarding my brother — whether he’s alive or not, whether he was executed or not,” he said. 

Rights groups and the Tibetan government-in-exile expressed “serious concern” on Friday over the enforced disappearances of Tibetans in Tibet and called on the Chinese government to release credible information on the whereabouts and well-being of those who have been arbitrarily detained.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy highlighted a “disturbing trend” of underreporting of the number of Tibetans who are victims of enforced disappearances as China cracks down more heavily with restrictions and heightened surveillance in Tibet. 

The rights group has documented more than 63 known cases of Tibetans subjected to enforced disappearance in Tibet over the past four years, but said the underreporting likely had to do with fear of reprisals. 

In February 2024, Tibetan performer  Gyegjom Dorjee, who sang publicly about the exiled Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet and blasted Chinese leaders as “false,” was arrested in China’s Sichuan province.  

In March, Chinese police arrested Pema, a Tibetan monk from Kirti Monastery, for staging a solo protest while holding a portrait of the Dalai Lama on the streets of Ngaba county in Sichuan province.  

And on May 28, the Chinese authorities arrested Rabgang Tenzin who hoisted the Tibetan national flag on the rooftop of his home in Tibet’s Chamdo prefecture as part of a consecration ceremony.  

On Friday, the U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China and the Tibetan government in exile urged Beijing to reveal the whereabouts of one of the highest Tibetan Buddhist leaders, the 11th Panchen Lama, or Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as one of the “most prominent enforced disappearance cases.” 

He was abducted by Chinese authorities in May 1995, just days after the Dalai Lama recognized the then six-year-old as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest spiritual leader in the largest sect of Tibetan Buddhism. 

‘An egregious human rights violation’

The whereabouts and well-being of disappeared Tibetans remain unknown, despite repeated attempts by family members to get information about them, causing them, government officials and rights groups said.

“Enforced disappearance is an egregious human rights violation that inflicts the trauma of indeterminate detention or disappearance on its victims, whom all too often are targeted for their dissent or advocacy for human rights and democracy,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement on Friday.

“Families of those forcibly disappeared also suffer immensely, not knowing where their loved ones are, or whether they are alive or dead,” he said. “The agony that enforced disappearance inflicts on the victims and their families is unimaginable.”

According to the U.N.’s official website, enforced disappearances are “frequently” used by authorities around the world as a way of spreading terror.

Hundreds of thousands of people have vanished during conflicts or periods of repression in at least 85 countries around the world, plunging their families into “mental anguish” and dire economic hardship, it said.

The disappeared are particularly vulnerable to torture, while women are at risk of sexual violence, a U.N. page explaining the concept said.

The practice violates a slew of fundamental human rights, including the right liberty and security, the right not to be subjected to torture or inhumane treatment, and the right to a fair trial, it said.

 Additional reporting by and Gulchehra Hoja for RFA Uyghur, and Dickey Kundol and Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.