She Could Face Death Penalty : Taiwan Arrests Publisher of California Newspaper

A San Marino woman who publishes a Monterey Park-based Chinese-language newspaper that has favored a dialogue between Taipei and Peking was arrested Tuesday in Taiwan and accused of printing Communist Chinese propaganda, a charge that can carry the death penalty.

Lee Ya-ping, 62, a Taiwan citizen with immigrant status in the United States, was arrested by the Taiwan Garrison Command for allegedly publishing articles supporting Peking’s overtures for reunification of Taiwan with mainland China.

She is specifically accused, according to wire service reports from Taipei, of having “repeatedly advocated that Taiwan should hold peace talks and carry out commercial, postal and travel relations with China, in a series of columns, news and editorials published in her International Daily News as a means to promote defeatism and damage the prestige of the government.”

The statement from the Taiwan Garrison Command added that Lee had published the entire text of a 1982 interview she conducted with Chai Zemin, at the time China’s ambassador to the United States, “thus promoting Communist psychological warfare.”

Copies of newspapers carrying this and other articles, the statement said, were found circulating in Taiwan despite a ban imposed on the newspaper by the government.

According to the statement, Lee was being held without bail and a military court was in charge her case.

Lee’s son, Simon Chen, general manager of the paper, said Tuesday in an interview at the International Daily News offices in Monterey Park that the charges against his mother are “unfair” and “ridiculous.”

“As a journalist in the United States, you have freedom of the press,” Chen said. “In no way do we do any propaganda simply through an interview.”

Although Lee has retained Taiwan citizenship, her husband, Tao Chen, and their five children are U.S. citizens, Chen said. He said his mother, who was born in China’s Canton Province, “has a strong feeling as a Chinese.”

Anthony Yuen, the paper’s editor in chief, said the publication is “an American newspaper.”

“The only difference is we publish in Chinese,” he said. “That’s all. In our reports, we try very hard to make a balance. . . . Pro-Peking people think we are pro-Taiwan, and the pro-Taiwan people think we are pro-Peking.”

Circulation of 58,000

Chen said the newspaper publishes articles from major Western wire services and the official news agencies of both China and Taiwan. Founded in 1981, it has a daily circulation of 58,000 throughout the United States, he said. The company also publishes News Digest, a weekly English-language community newspaper serving the San Gabriel Valley.

Lee moved to the United States in the mid-1970s and returned to Taiwan late last year for a visit, Chen said. She is chairwoman of two family-owned schools in Kaohsiung--the International Business College and International Business Senior High School--and is a former member of the Kaohsiung City Council, Chen said.

Last month she unsuccessfully sought the nomination of the ruling Nationalist Party, of which she is a member, to run for Kaohsiung County magistrate in elections scheduled for November, Chen said. Had she won the nomination and the election, she would have given up her immigrant status in the United States and moved back to Taiwan, he added.

Taiwan authorities said Lee’s publishing activities violate an article of the Anti-Sedition Act forbidding the spread of propaganda that benefits rebels.

Under Taiwan law, “the Communist regime is still regarded as a rebel group,” Victor Chang, deputy director of the information and communication division of the Los Angeles office of the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, Taiwan’s quasi-official diplomatic mission, said in an interview Tuesday.

‘A Willing Tool’

The Nationalist Party has ruled Taiwan since being driven off the Chinese mainland in the Communist victory of 1949.

Peking has never renounced the use of force in reunifying the island with the mainland and “has continuously tried to isolate the Republic of China on Taiwan,” Chang said.

“The garrison headquarters obviously thinks that Lee Ya-ping, who is a citizen of the Republic of China, must have a full understanding of the Chinese Communists’ seditious intent . . . yet she openly communicated with the Chinese Communists . . . and has been a willing tool of their united front scheme,” Chang said. “Her actions are subject to being handled in accordance with the law.”

Yuen said he believes that one reason for her arrest may be that the Taiwan government wants to use Lee as a hostage to force a change in the newspaper’s editorial policy. He and Chen said, however, that the paper would not bend.

“A question mark in my mind is, ‘Why do they do this to her at this moment?’ ” Yuen said. “What’s the good to the Taiwan government? My feeling is that when the news spreads to the world, the Taiwan government’s image will be hurt. . . . It’s a ridiculous thing to do that. Everyone will know that the Taiwan government violates human rights, free speech, free press.”

Warning to Others

Yuen and Chen said they believe that Lee’s arrest was also meant to serve as a warning to other Taiwan citizens in the United States that they are not protected by American free speech laws if they ever wish to return to the island.

Chang declined comment on whether Lee’s arrest means that under the Anti-Sedition Act, Taiwan citizens in the United States who speak or write in favor of peaceful reunification of Taiwan with China--or who write articles quoting the views of Communist Chinese officials--may face arrest if they return to Taiwan.

“I don’t want to speculate on that,” Chang said.