Beijing asked for information on missing Taiwanese man ‘feared detained for backing Hong Kong protests’
- Friends and family have been unable to contact volunteer activity organiser Lee Meng-chu for 10 days after he entered Hong Kong on August 18
- Township mayor fears he has been held in Shenzhen in relation to his support for the anti-government demonstrations
Officials in Taiwan demanded on Friday that Beijing disclose information about the disappearance of a Taiwanese man who had reportedly distributed photos of mainland Chinese troops massing equipment just outside protest-racked Hong Kong.
Friends and family have been unable to reach Lee Meng-chu, a volunteer activity organiser with a small township in southern Taiwan, for 10 days, the Taiwanese government’s Mainland Affairs Council said after receiving pleas for help from Lee’s family members.
“He was able to be contacted while in Hong Kong and then unreachable once he entered mainland China,” council spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng said. “The main thing now is we need to understand his movements and whereabouts, then eventually how to get him safely back to Taiwan.”
Lee entered Hong Kong on August 18, Taiwan’s government-run Central News Agency reported. He apparently transmitted photos to his brother and to the township chief showing the paramilitary troops massing equipment on the Hong Kong border with mainland China, the agency said.
The drills conducted in neighbouring Shenzhen fuelled speculation Beijing might deploy the People’s Armed Police to quell the unrest in Hong Kong.
Lee was part of a volunteer group for Fangliao township, a fishing community in Pingtung county, southern Taiwan. Fangliao’s mayor Chen Ya-lin said Lee was expected to fly from Hong Kong to Indonesia to meet him in Jakarta on Tuesday, but he had failed to show up. The case was reported to the Mainland Affairs Council on Sunday.