On March 17, 2024, Taiwan media reported the capture of two Taiwanese men surnamed Hu and Wu by Mainland Chinese authorities. The two men were apprehended after their boat drifted onto Mainland China’s shores while they were on a fishing trip near Kinmen. The foggy conditions led to the loss of their boat.
One of the men, Wu, has been sent back to the Taiwan side. In a well-arranged ceremony, a ship from the Mainland Coast Guard connected with a ship from the Taiwan Coast Guard and an exchange ceremony was held in front of a dozen journalists. However the second man, Hu, who happens to be an active Taiwan Army Officer from the Kinmen Defense Command is still in Mainland custody and has not been released.
Taiwan Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Chen Yuzhen visited the Mainland side and afterwards returned to Kinmen via the Xiamen. Chen declared to the Taiwanese media that the Mainland will release Mr Hu soon. Chen insisted that this event was not ‘hostage diplomacy,’ but rather that the Mainland side only wanted to investigate Hu’s identity. Chen pointed out that when Hu was first detained, he did not disclose the truth about his status as a Taiwan Army officer to the Mainland authorities
Meanwhile, a retired Taiwan Army Major General tacitly suggested that this case could have been a “defection.”
Speaking to the Taiwan media organization “News Vernacular” on March 19, retired Major General Li Zhengjie (栗正傑) said, “I did not know that soldiers were allowed to go fishing in Kinmen. This is really amazing. Back in my day we would have gotten killed by mortars if we wandered too out to the coast. They would send special forces to chase us down. This was a serious matter because it was likely to be a defection.”
The retired Major General went on to lament, “It can be seen that the defenders on the front line of Kinmen have no awareness of combat readiness at all. These battalion and company commanders have no vigilance or adaptability. How can such troops fight?”
Kinmen are a series of islands located just a mile or two off the coast of the Chinese Mainland. Despite its proximity to the mainland, since 1949 this area has been controlled by Taipei. Up until the late 1990s or so, these islands were considered a front line area. With the thawing of relations and the normalization of exchanges and ties between Taipei and Beijing, Kinmen was gradually demilitarized and numerous economic and transportation links have been established with the Mainland side. These islands have attracted international attention recently due to rumors of American Green Berets stationed there.
