Taiwan’s top China policy-making body, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), is calling on China to respect democracy and human rights.
The call came Tuesday after a leading Chinese journalist, Gao Yu, was sentenced to seven years in prison last Friday for “illegally providing state secrets to foreigners.”
The 71-year-old Gao has been in prison several times over the past 26 years. In November 1994, she was sentenced to six years in prison for leaking “state secrets.” On June 3rd, 1989, she was arrested for supporting the Tiananmen Square democracy movement but was released a year later.
The MAC urged China to respect freedom of speech as it is a universal value. The MAC also said Beijing must tolerate differing views and respond to dissidents’ demands with rationality.