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HONG KONG / TAIPEI – While Beijing is wary of pro-independence groups seeking closer ties to Hong Kong and Taiwan, activists say they are subject to heightened surveillance and harbadment of pro-Chinese media and unofficial "agents".
Visits to Taiwan in January by several Hong Kong activists, including Tony Chung, were widely covered by two pro-Chinese newspapers, including detailed reports on their movements and meetings.
The cover prompted Taiwan to investigate the activities of the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao newspapers on "national security" grounds.
The government found that the newspapers had committed "unlawful" acts, including invasive surveillance, and disseminated "false news". Officials said journalists in these newspapers would be banned from traveling to Taiwan for up to three years if the media did not provide a "reasonable explanation" for their activities in the country.
A review by Reuters of the two newspaper articles shows that at least 25 people related to anti-Chinese causes and causes of independence have been the subject of intense coverage, including including secret photographs and reports of personal data, in Taiwan during the last three years.
Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po have not responded to a request for comments from Reuters.
These newspapers, which generally adopt a favorable position in Beijing, should expect activists to pursue causes that upset the Chinese government.
But activists say their coverage extends to the area of harbadment, including monitoring overseas travel and publishing details of their privacy, including their home, work and daily commutes.
"It is obvious that there is an intervention of external forces in order to intimidate people," Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister of the Mainland Affairs Council, told Reuters Taiwan, referring to the coverage of pro-Chinese newspapers.
The cover has raised concerns about the activities of "Chinese and Hong Kong intelligence agents" on the island, Chiu added, including people working for pro-Chinese media.
Activists were also physically badaulted while traveling to Taiwan.
In July 2018, two Taiwanese were found guilty of badaulting Hong Kong activists in meetings with Taiwan independence advocates. Three men from Hong Kong were later quoted in Taiwan's media coverage for helping to facilitate the attack.
"I was followed until I almost left the airport," said Andy Chan, one of Hong Kong's activists, about his stay in Taiwan. "There are agents for China everywhere."
BEIJING INQUIET
China considers Hong Kong and Taiwan to be inalienable parts of its territory, calling separatist independence activists on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
In an annual report to the US Congress, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in November that since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, Beijing feared "collusion between "separatist forces" in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
"Beijing is doing everything in its power to prevent this," said a security source in the Taiwanese government, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the problem.
The source and a second Taiwanese security official involved in national security said China was quietly increasing the number of intelligence agents in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Wu Jieh-min, a Taiwan scholar who conducted research on civil movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan, said it was forbidden to enter Hong Kong for a university conference at the end of 2016.
Beijing is "very concerned about the exchange of ideas." If the ideas of civil society are not hindered, their power will be significantly increased, "said Wu, a researcher at Academia Sinica, a government-supported organization.
Wu said the protracted protests in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2014, aimed at preventing China's interference, have helped to strengthen ties between activists on both sides.
The Chinese Affairs Office in Taiwan and the main representative body in Hong Kong, the Liaison Office, did not respond to requests for comment.
Wen Wei Po also paid special attention to foreigners in contact with Hong Kong activists.
In December, reporters and photographers from Wen Wei Pao covered the daily activities of Kevin Carrico, an Australian political scientist, during a visit to Hong Kong during which he met defenders of independence and independence. presented it on the first page.
"I was a little frightened by the fact that the article was about my presentation, there were only 15 people there," he said about "no one's there." a private meeting in the basement of a Hong Kong building.
He added that there had been "a real escalation of political operations from Beijing to Hong Kong".
Attack of the hotel
Activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan describe an increase in the number of unknown individuals watching their meetings and events, sometimes taking pictures or recording their conversations.
In some cases, militants were attacked and the attackers identified.
Two Taiwanese, Zhang Xiuye and Jhang Jhih-min, were convicted in July 2016 of badaulting two Hong Kong independence activists, Andy Chan and Jason Chow, in a Taipei hotel.
Zhang and Jhang were found guilty of defamation and fined $ 6,000 ($ 195 or 21,762 yen) and $ 8,000 ($ 260); Jhang was also found guilty of "intimidating and endangering the security" of Chan.
Zhang and Jhang were among at least eight people who beat Chan and Chow and described them as "traitors" at the Caesar Park Hotel, according to Taipei court documents.
Chan told Reuters that he was at the hotel to meet with Ouyang Jin, a reporter from the little known Hong Kong publication, Pacific Magazine.
Zhang is a prominent member of the Chinese Concentric Patriotism Party, which advocates the unification of China and Taiwan, according to the group's website.
"It was purely an accident," they met Chan at the hotel, Zhang told Reuters.
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