Two senior executives of a Hong Kong-listed company with ties to the Chinese military have been detained in Taiwan for questioning over espionage allegations.
Xiang Xin, executive director of China Innovation Investment Limited (CIIL), and Kung Ching, a director, were held at Taiwan’s main international airport on Sunday when trying to leave the country and remained in Taiwan for further questioning, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, Taipei’s security agency in charge of probing infiltration from China, said on Monday.
The announcement comes after a fugitive who claims to be a former Chinese spy went public at the weekend with claims that Mr Xiang was commanding a spy network using CIIL and another Hong Kong-listed company. In a 16-page sworn statement to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), reviewed by the Financial Times, Wang Liqiang, the fugitive, claimed that he had worked for five years under Mr Xiang’s orders to suppress critics of China in Hong Kong and undermine Taiwan’s democracy.