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TAIPEI: Taiwan called China’s new espionage allegations fake news after Chinese state television broadcast a program showing a Taiwanese academic arrested in China on national security grounds at a time of intense tensions between Taipei and Beijing.
China claims that democratic Taiwan is its own territory and in recent weeks has intensified military activity near the island, including the flight of fighter jets over the sensitive midline of the Taiwan Strait.
Late on Monday, for the second night in a row, Chinese state television showed a Taiwanese person they said had confessed to spying, an academic named Cheng Yu-chin who had previously taught in the Czech Republic.
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The report said Cheng had previously worked as an assistant to Cho Jung-tai, the former chairman of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and showed Cheng on camera admitting that he knew his actions were “harmful” to China.
Cheng was arrested in China in April last year, the report added.
However, both Cho and the DPP said that Cheng had never worked for him. Cho, in a statement on his Facebook page, said that he did not even know Cheng.
“This news is obviously an incorrect report,” added Cho.
The Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council said in a separate statement that neither they nor the Straits Exchange Foundation, a semi-official body that handles some relations with China, had been contacted by family members for help.
The council condemned China for putting Cheng on television to make a confession, and said China was playing politics by trying to frame people for spying.
Cheng could not be reached for comment or to determine whether he was allowed to hire legal representation.
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Human rights groups and Western governments have expressed anger at China over previous cases in which suspects were put on state television to confess before their trials.
On Sunday night, Chinese state television aired another alleged confession of what they said was a Taiwanese spy who had gone to Hong Kong to support anti-government protesters and was secretly filming Chinese security forces across the border.
