Taiwanese Publisher Sentenced for "Secession" in Mainland China
Two years after his disappearance in Shanghai, Taiwanese publisher Li Yanhe (pen name Fu Cha, or “Fuschia”) has been secretly convicted of “inciting secession” by a mainland Chinese court. Li, editor-in-chief of Taiwan's Eight Banners publishing house—known for its books on Chinese history, including so-called sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre—was detained on charges of "endangering national security" during a visit to China in 2023. On March 17, 2025, China's Taiwan Affairs Office confirmed that Li Yanhe was convicted of “inciting secession” a month prior, but refused to disclose the specific sentence. The lack of transparency around Li’s case is likely intended to make it more difficult to advocate for his rights and to intimidate the Taiwanese people.
Li was originally born in Liaoning, China. After moving to Taiwan in 2009, he founded Eight Banners Publishing and began to print books on Chinese history, including many that conflicted with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s approved historical record. Critically, Li’s publishing activities were carried out outside of China. Yet, when he traveled to Shanghai in March 2023 to visit his family and give up his Chinese household registration (hukou), he was detained and held under “residential surveillance at a designated location,” a form of arbitrary detention frequently used by the authorities to hold people in undisclosed locations.
Since his disappearance, little has been known about Li’s case, save that he was targeted for political reasons—according to a Chinese government spokesperson, Li was “under investigation…for suspected activities endangering national security” (translation by HRIC). For two years, Li’s supporters waited in vain, while his publishing house released fewer books as time went on. Then, on February 26, 2025, the Chinese Supreme People’s Procuratorate referenced Li and Taiwanese National Party cofounder Yang Chih-yuan by name in a statement about cracking down on national security cases. (Yang, who was also arrested in mainland China for his work in Taiwan, was sentenced to nine years in prison in September 2024.) Tragically, like Yang, Li had become a tool for the CCP to make an example of those who dared to stand up against their version of the truth.
Li's case is emblematic of the CCP's systematic suppression of Taiwan's publishing, academic, and cultural circles, intending to create a chilling effect through intimidation. Taiwan is bastion of free speech and a refuge for Chinese-language publishers, artists, and journalists. Following crackdowns on publishers in Hong Kong, Taiwan’s role as an open society has become ever more critical. Human Rights in China strongly condemns Li’s imprisonment, which is not only a blatant violation of human rights but also a deeply concerning escalation of the CCP’s transnational repression of free speech on a global scale.