Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council and Ministry of Economic Affairs are preparing guidelines to help Taiwanese reduce the risks of travelling to China, where new exit and entry rules take effect on Sept. 15. National Security Council adviser Alex Huang told the Liberty Times that inspections under the new rules could extend to mobile phones and other electronic devices. The United States has already updated its travel warning for China, the paper reported.
What are travellers worried about? High-tech engineers and people whose work takes them to China have recently raised concerns with several ministries, Huang said in an interview aired on Sept. 11, Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA) reported. Beyond the arbitrary nature of the rules, under which China can decide whether a person may enter or leave, Huang said many fear that sensitive information they carry, especially companies' core secrets, could be obtained during device checks. Personal data is another worry, he said, as people question whether Facebook and other social media content on their phones could become grounds for China to "pin certain labels" on them. Some travellers now carry only company phones, he said, and some foreign-firm staff keep devices reserved for China trips.
Who faces the greatest risk? Huang singled out three groups: civil servants, religious figures and workers in sensitive technology industries. Public servants at any level could draw Chinese attention because of what they handle at work, he said, and even a village chief may know about local air-raid shelters or the storage of essential supplies. Officials visiting China have already been questioned, he said: grassroots police were asked whether they handled critical infrastructure security, and judicial staff what information they could access and even "can you get it for me." China regulates religious practices such as Buddhist ordination, Christian baptism and Yiguandao initiation, Huang said, citing Yiguandao, a mainstream religion in Taiwan, as a case where people who merely held a religious identity and went sightseeing were held back or even detained in the past year or two. The fields China watches include semiconductors, quantum science, special materials and possibly military-related industries, he said.
What happens next? The two agencies hope to issue the guidelines soon so that people travelling to China on business have ways to protect themselves, Huang said. Neither the concerns nor the risks are limited to Taiwanese, he said, and given how arbitrary Chinese law can be, people who consider themselves unconnected to politics or sensitive issues cannot rule out risk and should prepare before they go.
