TEARS ran down Lee Meng-chu’s face as he got ready to board a plane at Beijing airport on Monday.
The flight out of China marked the end of a harrowing ordeal for the Taiwanese businessman who had been held in the country for more than 1,400 days.
“I felt a huge relief after going through the passport check, and I cried a little,” he told the BBC this week. “I have returned to the free world.”
Mr Lee was arrested and jailed in 2019 after he snapped pictures of police officers in Shenzhen. He was accused of espionage and stealing state secrets – a charge he now denies.
He was released from jail in July 2021, but was prevented from leaving China as he was “deprived of political rights”.
It is rare for Beijing to impose this penalty, which includes an exit ban, on convicts who are not mainland Chinese nationals. Activists say that Mr Lee’s Taiwanese identity may have prompted authorities to make a political point, amid escalating tensions.
Taiwan regards itself as a self-ruled island, distinct from mainland China, with its own laws and democratically elected leader.
However, China sees island as a breakaway province that will eventually be brought under Beijing’s control, by force if necessary.
Like the thousands of Taiwanese who do business in China, Mr Lee visited the country on a work trip in August 2019. At the time he was working for a tech company.
He was no stranger to China, as he previously worked and lived in the eastern city of Suzhou, and also travelled to mainland China about twice a year.
When he visited tensions were running high because Hong Kong was engulfed in the most widespread pro-democracy protests it had ever seen. Almost every weekend, the city saw increasingly violent clashes between the police and protesters.
