China says it is verifying email tipoffs about Taiwan ‘separatist’ activity

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BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) -China’s government said on Wednesday it would carefully review email tipoffs it has received about Taiwan “separatist” activity, adding that “good people” have nothing to worry about, drawing a rebuke from Taipei that Beijing was simply lying.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, over the strident objections of the government in Taipei.

Beijing has been stepping up its campaign against those it accuses of being “separatists”, including in June threatening to execute “diehard separatists”, and in August announced an email address where people could report tipoffs about the crimes committed by such people.

Asked at a routine news conference in Beijing how the new email system was working, Chen Binhua, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, reiterated that their measures targeted only a very small minority.

“After the establishment of the mailbox for reporting diehard Taiwan independence elements, people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits have responded with practical actions,” he said.

This is a reflection of the “common aspirations” of people on either side of the strait, Chen added.

“We will carefully verify and screen the clues we receive,” he said. “We will never let a single Taiwan independence element off the hook, but we will never wrongly accuse good people either.”

Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said Beijing’s claims to be targetting only a small number of people was “obviously a lie” given its vague definition of being an independence supporter.

“We call on the mainland side to stop repeatedly intimidating and threatening the Taiwanese people,” it said in a statement.

Taiwan’s government, which says only the island’s people can decide their future, has condemned China’s new campaign, and warned against all but absolutely necessary travel to the country. China says that is alarmist nonsense.

China has a particular hatred of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, inaugurated in May, but has not placed him on its list of “hardcore separatists”, unlike Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, Defence Minister Wellington Koo and some others in his administration and party.

“Taiwan independence is a scourge, a dead end; it won’t come to pass,” Chen said, speaking of Lai’s first 100 days in office.

Lai has repeatedly offered talks with Beijing but been rebuffed, and also repeatedly warned of the danger Taiwan faces from its giant neighbour and the need to strengthen their defences.

(Reporting by Joe Cash and Ben Blanchard; editing by Miral Fahmy and Gareth Jones)