The Chinese government said Wednesday that a Chinese man detained near Taipei after crossing the Taiwan Strait on a speedboat was acting on his own and that Taiwan should not be so suspicious, in a case that has alarmed Taiwanese security officials.
The Taiwanese coast guard detained the man on Sunday in the coastal neighborhood of Tamsui after his boat entered a river that flows into Taipei, amid continuing tensions between Taiwan and China.
Taiwan claims the man is a former Chinese navy captain who may have been probing the island’s defenses.
At a press conference in Beijing, Chen Binhua, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, declared that what the man had done was “purely his personal action.”
“There is no need for the Democratic Progressive Party authorities to see soldiers hiding behind every tree and bush, carrying out political manipulations while pretending to act seriously,” he said, referring to Taiwan’s ruling party.
The man will be punished when he returns to China, Chen added, without giving further details.
Taiwan, which did not detect his vessel before it approached the coast, has not indicated when or if it will send him back, saying legal authorities are still investigating.
The director-general of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, Tsai Ming-yen, told parliament in Taipei on Wednesday that they were not excluding any possibility about the man’s motivation, including that the Chinese government was involved.
The man’s apparent military background made the case quite unusual, Tsai added.
“There are many areas of doubt that still need to be further clarified,” he said.
Taiwan has complained in recent years that China has been using so-called gray zone warfare, designed to exhaust the enemy through irregular tactics without resorting to open combat, such as flying surveillance balloons over the island. Tsai said the speedboat incident could be precisely such a tactic.
Taiwan’s coast guard said the man crossed the strait from China’s Fujian province, which faces Taiwan, and that it does not believe he came to Taiwan to seek political asylum.
