TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A serving and a retired police officer from Taiwan faced six hours of questioning during a trip to China, the Mainland Affairs Council said Saturday.
After the pair arrived at their B&B in the town of Quanzhou around 11 a.m. on June 24, six or seven national security agents took them to an office, the MAC said in a statement. Questioning of the officers lasted six hours until after 5 p.m.
MAC said this was not the first incident of its kind this year. Employees of the Coast Guard Administration, the National Immigration Agency, the National Police Agency, and the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau had received similar treatment during China trips.
MAC rejected a report by Taiwan’s China Times that speculated the two officers must have behaved in an inappropriate way to have attracted the attention of the Chinese agents.
The report seemed to be echoing remarks by the Chinese government claiming Taiwan was scaring the public to stay away from China, MAC said. The information about civil servants being questioned by Chinese agents came from the government employees themselves after returning to Taiwan as they wanted to warn their colleagues, according to the MAC statement.
