アメリカ民主主義さんの おぼえた日記 - 2024年8月16日(金)

＜BBCニュース8月16日＞
China's rhetoric turns dangerously real for Taiwanese
中国の論理が台湾人にとって恐ろしい現実に

◎要旨
台湾独立を唱えたものは、死刑や終身刑となるおそれがあり、中国で働く台湾人は帰国を速めるようになっている。中国政府は筋金入りの独立派のみを対象にするというが、文言はあいまいだ。書いた文章が、中国当局に誤解される恐れもある。中国は香港での国家安全法の成功を台湾でも利用する様相だ。
Calls to denounce “die hard" Taiwanese secessionists, a tipline to report them and punishments that include the death penalty for “ringleaders” – Beijing’s familiar rhetoric against Taiwan is turning dangerously real.
The democratically-governed island has grown used to China’s claims. Even the planes and ships that test its defences have become a routine provocation. But the recent moves to criminalise support for it are unnerving Taiwanese who live and work in China, and those back home.
“I am currently planning to speed up my departure,” a Taiwanese businesswoman based in China said – this was soon after the Supreme Court ushered in changes allowing life imprisonment and even the death penalty for those guilty of advocating for Taiwanese independence.
“I don’t think that is making a mountain out of a molehill. The line is now very unclear,” says Prof Chen Yu-Jie, a legal scholar at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office was quick to assure the 23 million Taiwanese that this is not targeted at them, but at an “extremely small number of hard-line independence activists”. The “vast majority of Taiwanese compatriots have nothing to fear,” the office said.
But wary Taiwanese say they don’t want to test that claim. The BBC has spoken to several Taiwanese who live and work in China who said they were either planning to leave soon or had already left. Few were willing to be interviewed on record; none wanted to be named.
“Any statement you make now could be misinterpreted and you could be reported. Even before this new law China was already encouraging people to report on others,” the businesswoman said.
That was made official last week when Chinese authorities launched a website identifying Taiwanese public figures deemed “die hard” separatists. The site included an email address where people could send “clues and crimes” about those who had been named, or anyone else they suspected.

★語句
denounce　（人を）告発する
die hard　（信念などに）執着する　激しく戦って死ぬ
secessionist　分離独立派

◎私見
中国は不動産バブルが崩壊し、経済状況は必ずしもよくないようだ。5%経済の成長を掲げ、生産は5％増加しているが、消費は2％増と冴えない。輸出で賄おうとしているが、米中貿易摩擦などで西側資本主義社会との貿易増が見込めないので、東南アジアや第三世界への売り込みを図る。
不動産収入は地方財政の要であり、地方自治体の財政が苦しいと公務員が困るのみならず、社会保障制度の根幹が危うくなる。こんな社会状態では、政府はイデオロギーを前面に掲げ、北朝鮮顔負けの強権政治を行うのであろう。