China releases jailed Taiwanese activist, sends him home

FILE PHOTO: Li Ching-yu, the wife of Taiwan activist Li Ming-che, sentenced to five years in prison by Chinese authorities for subverting state power speaks to the press on the fourth anniversary of his imprisonment in Taipei, Taiwan, March 19, 2021. REUTERS/Ann Wang

TAIPEI — A Taiwanese activist jailed in China returned to Taiwan on Friday after completing a five-year sentence.

Li Ming-che, a community college lecturer and activist at a human rights non-governmental organization in Taiwan, disappeared while visiting China in 2017.

Later that year, a Chinese court found him guilty of subversion in a trial that his wife denounced as illegitimate, saying she had not been allowed to hire lawyers for her husband.

Li landed at Taiwan’s main international airport in Taoyuan, and will first have to complete government-mandated quarantine, a group of Taiwanese human rights groups that campaigned for his release said in a statement.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said this week that Li’s sentence would soon be complete and he would be returned to Taiwan.

He admitted during his trial to having criticized China’s ruling Communist Party and to having shared articles and arguments promoting Taiwan’s multi-party democracy.

Li stood trial alongside Chinese national Peng Yuhua, 37, who confessed to creating instant messaging groups and founding an organization that sought to promote political change in China.

Beijing maintains that Taiwan is part of China and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under its control, while democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being governed by the Communist Party rulers in Beijing.

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