TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Following the detention of a Taiwanese activist by China, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) confirmed Friday (September 13) that another man, named as Tsai Chin-shu (蔡金樹), had been missing in the communist country since July 20 last year.
A talk show alleged Thursday (September 12) that Tsai had been detained for national security reasons for 419 days.
What made his case different from the more recent predicament of Morrison Lee (李孟居) was that Tsai was not known as a Taiwan Independence supporter and China critic, but as the chairman of a cross-straits relations association in southern Taiwan, reports said.
Tsai traveled to the city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province on July 20 last year to attend a food industry meeting, but vanished after checking out from a hotel in Xiamen the following day, the Central News Agency quoted the SEF as saying.
After his relatives informed the SEF of his disappearance in August last year, the semi-official body contacted its counterpart in China, but no news about Tsai has since been received.
Public attention has recently focused on the case of Lee, who went missing last August 20 after a visit to Hong Kong. On Wednesday (September 11), the Chinese government confirmed that Lee, an activist and adviser to the Pingtung County township of Fangliao, had been detained for “endangering national security.”
His arrest might have been based on his posting of pictures online of protests in Hong Kong and military vehicles in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, reports said.
Another Taiwanese human rights activist, Lee Ming-che (李明哲), is serving a five-year sentence in a Hunan jail after he first disappeared and was later confirmed detained following his entry into China in 2017.
