Chinese suspects involved in wire fraud are escorted off a plane upon arriving at the Beijing Capital International Airport on April 13, 2016, in Beijing, China. (Yin Gang/Xinhua News Agency via AP)
In April, Chinese officials successfully convinced Kenya to deport 45 Taiwanese citizens acquitted in the African country directly to mainland China, following allegations they had taken part in a massive telecom scheme that defrauded Chinese citizens of tens of millions of dollars.
"The suspects specifically targeted people on the Chinese mainland and their victims are from the mainland. Not to mention that many of the suspects are themselves from the mainland," Chinese Ministry of Public Security Deputy Inspector Chen Shiqu said at the time, according to state news service Xinhua. "They will thus be investigated, prosecuted and tried in accordance with mainland law."
This case, along with other recent instances of China flexing its military and political muscle abroad, incited furor from Taiwan. And it highlighted fears the Asian giant will continue to undermine its island neighbor – which it considers a renegade province, not an independent country – despite improved relations in recent years,
"This is why we feel outrageous and upset, because in a way, this is a setback in our cross-strait relations," Lyushun Shen, Taiwan's chief diplomat to the U.S., told U.S. News in a recent interview. "Now they try to squeeze our diplomatic space further."
The deportations were only the latest in a series of actions cited by Shen as evidence that Beijing has increasingly been trying to marginalize Taiwan, which is recognized officially as a nation by only the Holy See and 21 mostly poor states – all of which do not have diplomatic ties with China. (Taiwan does not have an official embassy in the U.S., so it instead operates the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, which Shen oversees.)
Earlier this year, Beijing restored relations with Gambia, which means little for China as a massive diplomatic player but represented a significant coup in light of Taiwan's already limited foreign affairs, as the tiny African country has vacillated in its relationships with the two over the years. China also is believed to have hampered Taiwan's efforts to attend the World Health Assembly later in May as an observer, and essentially has threatened to derail its participation in the future.
Shen believes China's antagonism of late is due primarily to its unease about the incoming government of President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party – unlike the currently ruling Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party – believes Taiwan is an independent and sovereign state.
Tsai, who will take office on May 20, has said she will work to maintain the "status quo" in Taiwan's relations with mainland China, based on the will of the people.
Still, Shen says the new ruling party's stance on Taiwan's independence has spooked Beijing.
"When you compile all these reasons, all these symptoms, of course we know they are unhappy with our incoming government so far," Shen says. "Can you find another reason to explain why?"
"Because the new government has not come in yet, it is probably a little bit too premature to say this is a foregone conclusion. But now we gather all the symptoms, here and there, and that's the only reason we can come up with."
Taiwan sees China's ability to force Kenya to deport its citizens as a violation of the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, which since 2009 has helped Taiwan and China target international crime syndicates like those allegedly involved in the telecom scam. The agreement also eases some of the complications in relations between the governments of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, known officially as the Republic of China.
Shen is particularly concerned by recent rhetoric from China emphasizing the so-called 1992 Consensus, a term used to describe an agreement between Chinese and Taiwanese officials that there is "one China" involving both the mainland and Taiwan. It also represents an acknowledgement that both governments believe they belong to one state but under different terms. China, for example, sees Taiwan as a renegade province, and Taiwan believes it maintains sovereignty over the mainland.
Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly has said that without the framework of the '92 Consensus as a base for relations, "the earth will move and the mountains will shake."
Beyond Beijing's political concerns, the economic powerhouse's regional activities also represent much larger global ambitions, Shen says.
"I think you have to try to see not only from the perspectives of South China Sea disputes, but they have a global design there. This is what they call the 'China Dream,'" Shen says, citing Chinese land seizures among existing islands and those they have created, and its increasingly expeditionary navy. "We're talking about serious intentions – grand designs, so to speak. South China Sea is probably just one of them."
But Shen remains optimistic, particularly amid a perceived shift among East Asian powers that diplomacy with China should focus more on sharing resources and not on disputing land claims.
"All the claimants hopefully can set aside political disputes and then start talking about resource sharing or joint exploration," Shen says. "At this moment, I think we all put too much emphasis on political disputes, or even military confrontation now."
