A statue of a worker with its weapon pointed towards Xiamen connected the Chinese mainland crossed the Taiwan Strait connected Lieyu Island successful Kinmen, Taiwan.
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Chinese constabulary connected Saturday offered rewards of $1,400 for accusation astir 18 radical it said were Taiwanese subject intelligence operations officers spreading "separatist" messages, a time aft Taiwan pledged to boost its defences.
China views democratically-governed Taiwan arsenic its ain territory, implicit the beardown objections of the authorities successful Taipei, and has accrued its subject and governmental unit against the island.
The nationalist information bureau successful the Chinese metropolis of Xiamen, which sits other Taiwan connected the different broadside of the Taiwan Strait, said the 18 were halfway members of Taiwan military's "psychological warfare unit", and published their pictures, names and Taiwan individuality paper numbers.
The portion handles tasks specified arsenic disinformation, quality gathering, intelligence warfare and the broadcast of propaganda, the information bureau said successful a statement.
"For a agelong clip they plotted to incite separatist activities," the bureau said, adding determination would beryllium rewards of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,401.74) for tips starring to their arrest.
They launched websites for smear campaigns, created seditious games to incite secession, produced fake video contented to mislead people, operated amerciable radios for "infiltration", and manipulated nationalist sentiment with resources from "external forces", the authorities Xinhua quality bureau said successful a abstracted report.
Taiwan's defence ministry had nary contiguous comment. The wanted announcement is mostly symbolic fixed that Taiwanese quality officers bash not openly sojourn the state and China's ineligible strategy has nary jurisdiction connected the island.
On Friday, President Lai Ching-te pledged greater efforts to boost Taiwan's defences, calling connected China to renounce the usage of unit to prehend the island. China reacted with anger, calling Lai a troublemaker and a "war-maker".
In June of this year, China issued a similar bounty for the apprehension of 20 radical Beijing said were Taiwanese subject hackers. Taiwan dismissed that threat, saying it would not beryllium intimidated.