Taiwanese authorities have returned a former Chinese state television presenter to Thailand after he sought temporary humanitarian protection during a transit stop at Taoyuan International Airport.
Cheng Wanjun, a Chinese national, had arrived from Bangkok on 2 November on a journey that was due to continue to Beijing. Instead of taking the onward flight, he asked for help to remain temporarily in Taiwan while he sought a place of refuge in another country.
Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency said it had consulted the Mainland Affairs Council and other authorities before returning him to Bangkok. The agency said Cheng had no valid entry permit and had not provided concrete evidence to support his request, so he did not meet the conditions for assistance.
The return had taken place by 4 November. The agency said it acted under Article 50 of Taiwan’s Immigration Act, which it cited as the basis for returning him to his previous point of departure. The precise time has not been established; the return may have taken place late on 3 November or early on 4 November.
Conflicting accounts of the return
Cheng has alleged that officers restrained and gagged him and beat him during the return. He said he was injured and sought medical treatment after reaching Bangkok. His allegations about the officers’ conduct have not been independently verified.
The immigration agency said Cheng resisted boarding and engaged in self-harm. It said staff took necessary measures to protect flight safety and acted in accordance with the law. Its statement did not address each of Cheng’s allegations individually.
Cheng said he feared further persecution if returned to China. He has said that, after comments he made were recorded and reported to the authorities in 2019, he was sentenced to six years in prison. He said he later left China for Thailand and wanted to publish material he had written while imprisoned. Neither his account of the sentence nor the reason for it has been independently established.
The Mainland Affairs Council said it could not verify his claim of persecution and had found no third-party evidence to support it. The council also said Cheng had been able to travel in and out of China without restrictions on his personal freedom. Those are the council’s findings; they do not establish what risk he might face in the future.
The council said authorities encounter several similar requests each year and need a screening mechanism rather than automatically allowing every applicant to stay. It said it generally sought to help Chinese dissenters, while asking the public to respect Taiwan’s laws and border controls.
Seeking a route to safety
After his return, Cheng said his Thai visa was close to expiry and that he was pursuing an application for refuge in Canada with help from supporters. No decision on that application has been confirmed.
The United Nations refugee agency says Thailand does not have an asylum system for the protection of refugees and warns that anyone without a valid visa risks detention. It says it receives and processes asylum applications in Thailand. That general guidance does not establish Cheng’s immigration status or the outcome of any application he may make.
A Taiwanese scholar and rights advocate, Tseng Chien-yuan, has argued that assessments should consider the risk of future persecution as well as evidence of past treatment. He said Taiwan lacks a dedicated refugee law and called for clearer application requirements, review procedures and reasons for refusal.
Other airport requests have led to different outcomes. In September, the Mainland Affairs Council said Taiwan had provided temporary accommodation on humanitarian grounds to a Chinese lawyer in a separate emergency case. The council did not describe that arrangement as a general right to stay for all applicants.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
