At least eight Taiwanese retired military or police personnel have been detained in China in the past year, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday, urging individuals with similar backgrounds to be cautious if they travel there.
Chinese authorities wanted to gather information about the individuals, specifically regarding their work, colleagues and networks, MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said.
Asked how long the eight people were held for, Liang replied: “The durations vary,” without elaborating.
Photo: Reuters
Such detentions could be an attempt to recruit individuals to work for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Liang said, citing cases prosecuted in the past few years involving retired military personnel working for the CCP.
“Seniors recruit juniors, superiors recruit subordinates and even former comrades introduce one another,” he added.
One of the recent espionage cases involving Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the CCP centered around Liu Sheng-shu (劉聖恕), a retired air force colonel who served as a spy and used his connections within the military to recruit active navy and air force officers to engage in espionage.
In April last year, Liu and six officers were indicted for contravening the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), and later in the year, the High Court branch in Kaohsiung found six of the seven defendants, including Liu, guilty.
Liu was sentenced to 20 years in prison and his illegal gains paid by China were seized.
Meanwhile, two anglers surnamed Hu (胡) and Wu (吳) from Kinmen County were detained by Chinese authorities after they went astray while fishing and were picked up by the China Coast Guard on March 17.
Wu and his fishing boat were handed over to the Kinmen Coast Guard by Chinese officials on March 23, but Hu, an active soldier whose retirement had been approved on May 8, has not yet been released by the Chinese authorities.
Liang said the council has used several channels to communicate with the Chinese side in an attempt to expedite the return of Hu, but has received no response.
“This incident has now lasted for more than three months — no matter what needs to be investigated, it should not take longer than that,” Liang said, adding that the council is not clear on the reason for Hu’s continued detention.
He said that in the waters between Kinmen and the Chinese city of Xiamen, there has always been an understanding between the two sides regarding low-level incidents, such as anglers going astray.
“When we rescue their people, we send them back, and in the past, they did the same,” he said. “Why this incident is an exception is something we honestly cannot understand.”
The Chinese authorities have not classified the incident as immigration-related or said that Hu committed a crime, they have only confirmed he is being held due to his military background, he added.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) on March 22 said that Hu was being held because he “intentionally fabricated information about his occupation in an attempt to conceal it,” adding that the authorities needed to verify Hu’s identity to fully understand the situation.
On May 15, Chen said information related to the event “is still being verified.”
Theaters and institutions in Taiwan have received 28 threatening e-mails, including bomb threats, since a documentary critical of China began being screened across the nation last month, the National Security Bureau said yesterday. The actions are part of China’s attempts to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, it said. State Organs (國有器官) documents allegations that Chinese government officials engage in organ harvesting and other illegal activities. From last month to Friday last week, 28 incidents have been reported of theaters or institutions receiving threats, including bomb and shooting threats, if they did not stop showing the documentary, the bureau said. Although the threats were not carried out,
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: China continues to build up its military capacity while regularly deploying jets and warships around Taiwan, with the latest balloon spotted on Sunday The US is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of a Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. They would be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday, citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations. A US Marine Corps regiment that possesses High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — a light multiple rocket launcher — would be deployed along the Nansei Island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said. According to US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations,
As Taiwan celebrated its baseball team’s victory in the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12 on Sunday, how politicians referred to the team in their congratulatory messages reflected the nation’s political divide. Taiwan, competing under the name Chinese Taipei (中華台北隊), made history with its first-ever Premier12 championship after beating Japan 4-0 at the Tokyo Dome. Right after the game, President William Lai (賴清德) congratulated the team via a post on his Facebook page. Besides the players, Lai also lauded the team’s coaching and medical staff, and the fans cheering for them in Tokyo or watching the live broadcast, saying that “every
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday confirmed that Chinese students visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation were almost all affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During yesterday’s meeting convened by the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) asked whether the visit was a way to spread China’s so-called “united front” rhetoric, to which MAC Deputy Ministry Shen You-chung (沈有忠) responded with the CCP comment. The MAC noticed that the Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan, including those in sports, education, or religion, have had increasingly impressive backgrounds, demonstrating that the
RSS