Taiwanese deported to China from Kenya admit to crimes

BEIJING, Friday

China’s state media has shown Taiwanese deported from Kenya “confessing” to fraud while under police detention, the latest development in a case which has enraged Taipei.

Kenyan police deported 45 Taiwanese to China’s mainland this week. Taipei said several of them had been acquitted of crimes in the African country, and accused Beijing of “abduction”.

China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed two Taiwanese in a Beijing detention centre apparently admitting to crimes.

Such confessions have become common in Chinese state-media in recent years. Lawyers say they deny defendants the right to a fair trial.

CCTV said the Taiwanese suspects pretended to be officials to gain personal details from mainland citizens.

“I impersonated Beijing police,” CCTV showed one Taiwanese man surnamed Jian as saying.

A Taiwanese man whose surname was given as Xu was shown saying that “because I had committed fraud previously... I was responsible for impersonation”.

WEARING HOODS

Earlier, state media showed the suspects on a flight to China, wearing hoods and flanked by police officers.

China considers Taiwan one of its provinces awaiting reunification — by force if necessary — though the island has ruled itself since the civil war ended in 1949.

Relations have often been tense, and the landslide election victory of independence-leaning Tsai Ing-wen in January’s presidential poll raised fears that Beijing would seek to assert its stance more forcefully.

China’s public security ministry said this week that Beijing had “legal rights of jurisdiction” over the Taiwanese suspects.

Taipei earlier said officials from the Chinese mainland “abducted” the first group of citizens, deported at the weekend.