TAIPEI (DPA) - Taiwan on Wednesday (June 19) strengthened its national security law to give heavier punishments to those who undermine the self-governing island's democracy under renewed threats from China.

Under the amendment to the National Security Act, anyone assisting in the development of espionage rings for Beijing will be sentenced to prison for at least seven years and a fine of up to NT$100 million (S$4.3 million).

The punishments had previously been imprisonment for under five years and a fine less than NT$1 million.

"The revision helps further strengthen the mechanism to protect our democracy," Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang said late on Wednesday.

According to Chang, the task of protecting Taiwan's democracy has become critically important since Chinese President Xi Jinping revealed his plans on Jan 2 to forcefully apply Beijing's "one country, two systems" approach to the island, which it claims as a renegade province.

Beijing used the dual-track approach to bring former European colonies Hong Kong and Macau back under its umbrella in the late 1990s, granting them a degree of autonomy for a transitional period.

Xi also demanded "democratic negotiations" with Taiwan under the "one China" policy, a deliberately ambiguous piece of Cold War-era realpolitik that allows both sides to interpret differently what one China means.

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Chang said other revisions made by lawmakers in May, to protect classified national security information and to raise the bar for any political agreements with China, were also aimed at keeping Taiwan's democratic system intact.

Taiwan has had its own government since 1949, when the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang) fled there after losing a civil war to the Chinese Communist Party.