A Taiwanese editor who published many books banned in China was tried last month in Shanghai on charges of “secession,” a government spokesperson said in comments widely reported by the island’s media.
Li Yanhe, more widely known by his pen-name Fucha, or Fuchsia, was detained some time in March 2023 after traveling to China to cancel his household registration as part of his naturalization as a citizen of democratic Taiwan.
Li, who is ethnically Manchu, founded the Eight Banners imprint under Taiwan’s Book Republic publishing group in 2009, using it to publish non-fiction works on China’s overseas infiltration and influence operations, the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and other work critical of Beijing.
He is among hundreds of Taiwanese nationals to disappear in China over the past 10 years, rights groups told the United Nations in December.
“The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court held a public trial and issued a verdict in the first instance on Feb. 17, 2025,” Taiwan’s Central News Agency quoted a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office as saying.
No verdict has yet been issued, according to reports in the United Daily News and Central News Agency.
“The court tried the case strictly in accordance with the law and fully protected the various litigation rights enjoyed by Li Yanhe and his defense counsel in accordance with the law,” spokesperson Chen Binhua told Central News Agency.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council told the agency it was aware of all of the details of Li’s case, but wasn’t making them public in accordance with his family’s wishes.
“The fundamental purpose of the Chinese Communist Party’s detention of Fu Cha is to create a chilling effect in Taiwan’s cultural and academic circles,” the Council was quoted as saying. “This case clearly shows the authoritarian nature of Chinese Communist Party rule.”
It said the case had once more demonstrated that Taiwanese nationals should be aware of the risks associated with travel to China.
Public trials are ‘meaningless’
Taiwanese rights activist and NGO worker Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year prison sentence in China after disappearing on a visit there himself, dismissed the claim that Li had had a “public trial.”
“Public trials in China are meaningless,” Lee told RFA Mandarin on March 17. “Who was it open to?”
“China did not proactively inform the outside world of Fu Cha’s verdict,” he said. “Today, it responded passively responding to a question about an allegedly secret trial.”
According to Lee, the charge of secession can be laid against anyone who doesn’t support Beijing’s territorial claim on the island.
“Anyone who doesn’t support their one country, two systems idea is basically an independence activist in the view of the Chinese government,” Lee said, adding that Li could wind up making a forced public statement in future.
Taiwan was ruled as a Japanese colony in the 50 years prior to the end of World War II, but was handed back to the 1911 Republic of China under the Kuomintang, or KMT, government as part of Tokyo’s post-war reparation deal.
The KMT made its capital there after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists that led to the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
While the Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan as an “inalienable” part of its territory, Taiwan has never been ruled by the current regime in Beijing, nor has it ever formed part of the People’s Republic of China.
Zeng Jianyuan, chairman of the overseas-based New School for Democracy, said the authorities have yet to make the verdict public.
“This case is attracting international attention, yet the media and human rights groups following the case have no way of finding out what the verdict was,” Zeng said. “The Taiwan Affairs Office is simply talking nonsense.”
According to Article 103, Section 2 of China’s Criminal Law, those who “incite secession and undermine national unity” can receive jail terms of “no less than five years” if their case is deemed serious.
There are also concerns that China will treat Li as a Chinese national and refuse to allow him to return home to Taiwan after his sentence has been served, Lee said.
Viewed as a ‘traitor’
Li had intended to renounce his Chinese household registration on his trip as part of his naturalization process as a citizen of Taiwan, but had been detained before he could get to it, he said.
“If the Chinese government treats him as a Chinese national, then he won’t be allowed back to Taiwan when his sentence is complete,” Lee said.
Zeng said Beijing regards Li as a “traitor” because he retains his Chinese nationality and his membership of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
“That’s why the Chinese Communist Party wants to punish him severely,” Zeng said.
Li was born in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning to a Manchu family, and joined the Chinese Communist Party after graduating from university, before rising to become vice president of the Shanghai Literature & Art Publishing House.
He married a Taiwanese woman in 1996, and settled in Taiwan in 2009. His last Facebook post was made on March 12, 2023.
The Republic of China has remained a sovereign and independent state since 1911, now ruling just four islands: Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.
The island began a transition to democracy following the death of KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek’s son, President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of a president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster