China Imprisons a Taiwanese Person for ‘Separatism’ for the First Time

China handed a nine-year prison term to a Taiwanese political activist convicted of “separatism,” a rare sentence that prompted Taiwan to warn its people about the dangers of traveling across the strait.

Yang Chih-yuan received the term in a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a briefing on Thursday, according to the semi-official Central News Agency.

China’s ruling Communist Party intended for the “case to intimidate the people of Taiwan,” said council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh, adding that travelers from the democracy of 23 million should be prudent when considering going across the strait.

This was the first time China jailed a Taiwanese person on a charge of trying to break up its territory, according to the council, a government department in Taipei that handles cross-strait relations. In recent years, Chinese prosecutors have leveled the charge against Uyghurs, a minority group in the restive far western region of Xinjiang.

The episode involving Yang adds to tensions between Beijing and Taipei that have mounted since Lai Ching-te took over as Taiwan’s president in May. China deeply distrusts Lai, accusing him of pushing to formalize Taiwan’s independence.

Read More: Taiwan’s New President Lai Ching-te Is Standing His Ground

China held a major military drill earlier this year around Taiwan, a chip hub that the U.S. backs economically, politically and militarily. Beijing has also stepped up pressure on offshore islets that Taipei controls and, in January, peeled off Nauru, one of the archipelago’s few remaining diplomatic allies.

Last year, former Taiwan Premier Chen Chien-jen urged China to free Yang, who was arrested in 2022 in Wenzhou. At the same time, China said a publisher from Taiwan had come under investigation for alleged involvement in activities that hurt national security. There’s been no update to that case.

China’s state security authorities detained Yang for setting up an illegal party to promote Taiwan’s independence, the official Xinhua News Agency reported earlier.

He was also accused of advocating for Taiwan to join the United Nations as an independent, sovereign country, the report said. In 1971, the U.N.’s General Assembly voted to give the seat Taiwan had held to China.

Yang appears to have been living in China in the first half of 2022, though it’s unclear what he was doing there. When he was still in Taiwan, he co-founded a minor political party.

Chinese state media has not reported on Yang’s sentencing and judicial authorities have not released documents about it.