China has retaliated with sanctions against two US bodies and their senior executives who hosted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen during her stay in the United States, with Beijing claiming the Americans provided platforms and facilities for “Taiwan independence”.
Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s representative in the United States, was also sanctioned for her role in arranging Tsai’s meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The two institutions are the Hudson Institute, which hosted an event and presented Tsai with the institute’s global leadership award on March 30, and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, where Tsai met McCarthy and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, according to a statement by Beijing’s foreign ministry on Friday.
Both American institutions are banned from having exchanges, cooperation and other activities with any individuals, universities or institutions in Beijing’s territory, including Hong Kong and Macau, the ministry said.
Some senior executives — including the Hudson Institute’s Sarah May Stern, who chairs the board of trustees, and president and CEO John Walters, and from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation and Institute, Joanne Drake, chief administrative officer, and John Heubusch, former executive director — will be denied visas and entry to mainland China.
Their assets, real estate and other properties within Beijing’s territory will be frozen. Organisations and individuals are banned from engaging in relevant transactions, cooperation and other activities with them, according to the statement.
The Taiwan Affairs Office also announced on Friday it would impose similar sanctions on two organisations: The Prospect Foundation, based in Taipei, and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, saying the two were using “democracy and freedom” to promote Taiwanese independence in the international community under the instruction of the island’s ruling party Democratic Progressive Party.
Beijing accused Hsiao of being a “Taiwan independence diehard” and banned her and her family from visiting mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian also announced that all investors and firms related to Hsiao were forbidden from cooperating with mainland companies and individuals, reiterating that the ban would be a “lifelong accountability” punishment.
Hsiao, who played a key role in Tsai’s meeting with McCarthy and his predecessor Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August, was accused by Zhu of “relying on the US to promote Taiwan independence, deliberately stirring up cross-strait confrontation and wilfully undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.
This is the second time Beijing has imposed sanctions on Hsiao since August when Pelosi wrapped up her trip to the self-ruled island. At that time, the Taiwan Affairs Office also banned six other Taiwanese officials and lawmakers from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Beijing’s sanctions will have little legal impact on Taiwanese because almost all senior officials with the ruling DPP refrain from visiting the mainland, while Beijing’s courts do not have jurisdiction in Taiwan.
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