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SCMP Reporter

BUDDHIST leader Master Shing Yun has been blacklisted as a ''spy'' by Chinese authorities for his part in helping former New China News Agency director Mr Xu Jiatun to defect, according to a senior Taiwanese Government official.

  Mr Huang Kun-huei, chairman of the cabinet's Mainland Affairs Council, yesterday told the Executive Yuan the council had learned that the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of the Chinese Communist Party had issued an instruction stating that Master Shing Yun was not to be welcomed.

  Without disclosing his source of information, Mr Huang said the TAO also believed the 67-year-old Taiwanese monk worked as a ''special agent'' for the ruling Kuomintang in Taiwan.

  ''Xu defected because he was influenced by him [Shing Yun] who also offered Xu protection [in the United States],'' Mr Huang said.

  ''He [Shing Yun] is now considered [by Beijing] a political monk.''   According to Mr Huang, the TAO has made clear no government or religious organ on the mainland will be allowed to receive Master Shing Yun without the Communist Party's prior approval.

  Speaking in Taiwan yesterday, Master Shing Yun denied the allegations and said he was not aware of the TAO's instruction.

  ''I am not aware of that,'' Master Shing Yun was quoted as saying. ''I have not been warned.''   He said he was treated ''politely'' when he visited his hometown in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, during the Lunar New Year and he had not noticed anything unusual.

  Master Shing Yun said he was once ''criticised'' by Beijing for helping Mr Xu to defect to the US three years ago but denied his decision was politically motivated.

  ''It would not look very good if Mr Xu was being taken care of by an American?'' Master Shing Yun said.

  ''I helped [him] because I thought it would be better if it was done by a Chinese.'' 



Monk 'barred' for aiding defector