A semi-official organization tasked by the government with handling technical matters involving China has said it has offered to help the family of a Taiwanese businessman who died in China last month handle matters relating to his death.
The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) on Friday said that it contacted the Taiwan-based family of Lu Hung-chieh (盧泓傑) to offer assistance, after learning he died in an accident in China on June 21.
The SEF said it would help Lu’s family apply for a death certificate and deal with other technical issues in China.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The foundation also pledged to provide legal assistance to Lu’s family to inherit his property in China, if necessary.
The SEF statement was released after Lu’s family and friends told local media they were suspicious about his death and that he was cremated just three days after the incident.
A friend of Lu, surnamed Hsu (許), on Thursday said that Lu was a Pingtung native who moved to China in the late 1990s.
He married a Chinese woman and founded Chengdu Ebony Art Museum in China’s Sichuan Province to showcase his ebony collection.
The museum’s Web site says that its founder was in the real-estate business, but fell in love with ebony in 1991 while working in Chengdu and had since spent a fortune collecting thousands of ebony artifacts.
The museum was first established by Lu in 2000 at a cost of 300 million yuan (US$41.3 million) as a private museum before opening to the public in 2011.
Hsu said that Lu made a small fortune in China and had wanted to hand over his business to his son.
However, his son died two years ago.
When Lu returned to Taiwan earlier this year, he told Hsu that he wanted to transfer all his assets in China back to Taiwan, but was allegedly stopped by the Chinese government, Hsu said.
Lu apparently died in an accident while operating a crane to transport a piece of large ebony on June 21, Hsu said.
He said Lu’s death and his cremation three days later is “somewhat suspicious.”
Lu Hung-chieh’s niece, Lu Wen-shin (盧玟欣), a Pingtung County councilor, said that when they met during the Lunar New Year holiday in February Lu Hung-chieh told her that he had wanted to bring his ebony collection from China to Taiwan.
Lu Hung-chieh said he had faced difficulties in sending back his collection because the Chinese government was “pretty unreasonable,” but did not tell her how, the councilor said.
The SEF’s counterpart in China is the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits.
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