This English version may have been machine-generated from the Chinese original and may not convey the original meaning accurately.
At the elevator entrance after a speech in Taichung, a punch landed on the face of Japanese media figure Akio Yaita—and also in the hearts of all those who still believe there are ways to evade the boundaries of “freedom of speech.” According to reports, the assailant had arrived a day earlier to lie in wait, then quickly changed clothes and took a vehicle to the airport to prepare to leave the country. The entire sequence was clean and decisive, clearly not a spontaneous street confrontation. Taiwanese police intercepted him at the airport. His identity, route, and modus operandi closely resemble those in previous cases, including the assault on Causeway Bay Books owner Lam Wing-kee and the paint attack on the studio of Tang Wai-hung, a Hong Kong resident in Taiwan—this is no longer an isolated public-security incident, but a recognizable pattern of operation.
What deserves scrutiny is this: why should a person suffer a physical assault abroad simply because their “speech displeased Beijing”? The answer points to the National Unity and Progress Promotion Law, which took effect on July 1 this year. Article 63 of the law stipulates that overseas organizations and individuals may also be held legally responsible if they are deemed to have “undermined national unity and created ethnic division.” This is blatant extraterritorial long-arm jurisdiction: Beijing is no longer satisfied with controlling speech within its borders, but is reaching into the territory of other countries to set invisible targets for critics. Yaita has recently continued criticizing this pernicious law and promoting Taiwan-Japan exchanges, and was then ambushed. The temporal and logical connection between the two is difficult to explain as coincidence.
The root cause of cross-border repression lies not in any particular perpetrator, but in a power system subject to no checks and balances. Under one-party rule, there is no legislature independent of the ruling party to examine whether the National Unity and Progress Promotion Law violates international law and basic human rights, no independent judiciary to determine whether such a “pernicious law” is constitutional, and no free media or opposition parties to publicly question its motives. Thus, a law that could have been corrected through public debate becomes instead a tool for exporting fear abroad; the freedom of expression of an ordinary citizen becomes a threat requiring a violent “warning.” This is the typical operating method of a totalitarian system: transforming the machinery of the state into a private instrument for suppressing dissent, and replacing “unity” with “oppression”—as Taiwan’s vice president put it, this is not national unity, but national oppression.
What is even more unsettling is that this export of fear is not confined to the country’s borders. Cross-border harassment, intimidating international students, and pressuring overseas communities into silence are all, in essence, natural extensions of totalitarian logic: a regime that closely monitors even its own citizens’ speech will naturally not tolerate critics overseas living in peace. This reminds us that authoritarian expansion is never merely an abstract geopolitical issue, but a real risk that every ordinary person living in a democratic society and enjoying freedom of speech may face.
Taiwan’s swift investigation and handling of the case, public condemnation, and call for the international community to jointly counter such acts deserve recognition. This is precisely where the value of a constitutional democracy lies: the police independently enforce the law, prosecutors investigate in accordance with the law, the government makes public statements, and the media provides comprehensive coverage. The entire process is transparent and accountable, and every stage can be monitored and scrutinized by the public. This is exactly what a totalitarian system lacks—with no separation of powers, there are no checks on legislation that abuses power; without judicial independence, there can be no impartial accountability for acts of violence; without freedom of the press, cross-border repression could even be quietly covered up, leaving no one aware of it.
Yaita said that retreating would only allow an evil regime to prevail. This statement is not merely a declaration of personal courage, but also a call to civic consciousness: only when more people refuse to remain silent, only when the international community counters cross-border repression through unified action, and only when constitutional democracy, checks and balances, and the protection of human rights become universal values, will violent intimidation lose its market. Defending freedom of speech has never been a solitary struggle waged only by journalists or dissidents; it is a responsibility that every citizen who cherishes their own dignity and freedom should shoulder together.
News Background: The original report on which this commentary is based can be found at News - Voice of America。