Taiwan Deports 21 Chinese Residents, Including Human Rights Activist Against Beijing Hu Haibo

JAKARTA - The National Immigration Agency (NIA) has begun the deportation of 21 Chinese nationals, including a man claiming to be a dissident, a report said Thursday.

The procedure began in May last year, when the NIA sent a list of the names of 23 Chinese nationals who had illegally entered Taiwan, CNA reported. Talks between the two countries resulted in an agreement to repatriate them in four stages. But by that time, two of them had disappeared.

Those deported were 18 men and three women, including Hu Haibo, who described himself as a human rights activist who was persecuted by Beijing's communist government, a supporter of the Hong Kong protest movement.

However, observers say his recent behavior and statements show that he is not a true dissident, citing Taiwan News January 7.

The NIA initially planned to place the deportees on a ship from the offshore island of Kinmen to China's Fujian Province. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NIA chose to repatriate them by plane.

Taiwan's government said the latest deportation was the first since November 2020 because travel was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

"The process has a positive meaning for normal and orderly exchanges between the two sides," said the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's top body in charge of China relations, as reported by NDTV.

The first group left Taiwan on Wednesday (Jan 5), with Hu departing on Thursday. The rest are scheduled to return to China before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday starting January 29.

Despite the strained relations between the two sides, Taiwan and China still maintain contacts to fight crime together. Even so, deportations are taking more time to prepare than ever before, the report said.

Police from both sides routinely return fugitives to their respective territories under the 2009 agreement, but deportations have become rarer since President Tsai Ing-wen, who views Taiwan as a sovereign nation, came to power in 2016.

Meanwhile, Beijing, which views the self-governing island as part of its own territory, has cut off official communications and stepped up pressure on Taipei since Tsai took office.

To note, Thursday's deportation announcement came after China last month returned a Taiwanese murder suspect under a 2009 agreement, reached when relations were warmer under Taiwan's friendly Beijing government.