Taiwan says four employees of Apple supplier Foxconn arrested in China

Taipei, Taiwan – Four Taiwanese employees of Apple supplier Foxconn have been detained in China since January, Taiwan’s national news agency has reported.

The workers were detained in Zhengzhou, the home of Foxconn’s largest iPhone factory, by the local public security bureau for the equivalent of “breach of trust”, Central News Agency (CNA) reported Thursday, citing the Taiwanese government.

According to the Taiwanese Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Foxconn claimed that its employees had not violated the company’s policies and that it was unable to rule out corruption and power abuse by a select few police officers.

The MAC claimed that the case had “severely damaged business confidence” and was “quite strange” and had “severely damaged business confidence.”

A request for comment was not immediately addressed by Foxconn and the MAC.

The most recent incident to highlight the dangers that Taiwanese living and working in China face.

In the first-ever secession-related prosecution of its kind, a court in Wenzhou sentenced Taiwanese independence activist Yang Chih-yuan to nine years in prison last month.

Also last month, an executive of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics was detained as he tried to leave China, CNA reported.

In June, the MAC raised the travel alert for China, Hong Kong, and Macau from “yellow” to “orange” and advised citizens against “unnecessary travel”, citing China’s strict national security and anti-espionage laws.

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau in July told the island’s legislature that, during the previous 12 months, 15 citizens had been detained or put on trial on Chinese soil, while 51 had been interrogated at the border.

Beijing’s Communist Party claims self-ruled Taiwan, whose formal name is the Republic of China, as one of its provinces, while Taipei insists it is a sovereign democracy.

Additionally, Beijing considers Taiwanese to be Chinese citizens despite not recognizing dual citizenship.