Taiwan-based publisher under investigation in China: Chinese official
ROC Central News Agency
04/26/2023 04:45 PM
Beijing/Taipei, April 26 (CNA) The founder of Taiwan-based Gūsa Publishing, Li Yanhe (李延賀), who has reportedly been detained in China since March, is under investigation for "suspected activities endangering national security," a Chinese official confirmed on Wednesday.
Li, better known as Fu Cha (富察), is being investigated by Chinese state security officials, said Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮), a spokeswoman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, at a press briefing in Beijing.
Zhu claimed Li's legal rights would be protected in accordance with the law, but she did not provide further details, such as the state of Li's health and his whereabouts.
Li, a Chinese national with residency in Taiwan, was reportedly arrested by police in Shanghai in March, shortly after he arrived in China to visit his family and deal with residency-related issues.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a legislative hearing in Taipei on Wednesday, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) head Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said his agency will discuss "the latest developments" with Li's family before determining what to do next.
The MAC, Taiwan's top government agency handling cross-Taiwan Strait affairs, has been reluctant to provide information about the case other than saying Li was "safe," citing the need to "respect the wishes of Li's family."
A statement issued by Gūsa last Saturday said Li had been forbidden from seeing his lawyer and family members, and communication with him was also "severely restricted."
Chu also told the legislative hearing that the detentions of Li and Taiwanese national Yang Chih-yuan (楊智淵) by the Chinese government were acts of "intimidation."
Yang, who once served as vice chairman of a fringe political party promoting Taiwan independence, has been detained by the Chinese authorities since last August on charges of secession.
Meanwhile, David Lee (李大維), who heads the semi-governmental Straits Exchange Foundation, told reporters at a separate event that the government would "definitely take measures" to try to protect the rights of Li and Yang.
Lee noted, however, that these two cases were of a "highly sensitive" nature, adding that he hoped the Chinese authorities would work with Taiwan to handle them.
Born in 1971 in the Chinese province of Liaoning, Li relocated to Taiwan in 2009 and founded Gūsa the same year. Li, who remains the editor-in-chief of the publishing house to this date, is married to a Taiwanese woman and has held residency in Taiwan since 2013.
Gūsa, which is affiliated to the Book Republic Publishing Group, has over the years printed books that either criticize the Chinese Communist Party or touch upon the party's taboos.
They include "Red Infiltration: The Reality of China's Global Media Expansion," a book written by U.S.-based Chinese economist He Qinglian (何清漣) about Beijing's overseas media outreach for global influence.
Gūsa has also published the Chinese version of award-winning journalist Louisa Lim's (林慕蓮) "The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited," an in-depth analysis of Beijing's violent crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and how the incident changed Chinese society thereafter.
(By Lu Chia-jung, Lee Ya-wen, Tang Pei-chun and Teng Pei-ju)
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