China Threatens Taiwan Separatists With Lifelong Criminal Liability
NDTV
China has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control, despite the island's claim that it is an independent country that will defend its freedom and democracy.
China will hold those who support "Taiwan independence" criminally liable for life, it said on Friday, provoking anger and ridicule from the democratic island at a time of heightened tension across the sensitive Taiwan Strait.
For the first time China was spelling out the punishment that awaits people deemed to back independence for Taiwan, top officials of the self-ruled island among them, as tension rises over what China regards as a province of its own.
China has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control, despite the island's claim that it is an independent country that will defend its freedom and democracy.
The Taiwan Affairs Office named Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang, Parliament Speaker You Si-kun and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu as being "stubbornly pro-Taiwan independence", as it made public for the first time that it had drawn up a list of those falling into the category.
