China handed a nine-year prison term to a Taiwanese political activist convicted of “separatism,” a rare sentence that prompted Taiwan to warn its people about the dangers of traveling across the strait. Yang Chih-yuan received the term in a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a briefing on Thursday, according to the semi-official Central News Agency. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] China’s ruling Communist Party intended for the “case to intimidate the people of Taiwan,” said council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh, adding that travelers from the democracy of 23 million should be prudent when considering going across the strait. This was the first time China jailed a Taiwanese person on a charge of trying to break up its territory, according to the council, a government department in Taipei that handles cross-strait relations.