Kaohsiung, 18 August 1998
On
Tuesday, 18 August 1998, Ms. Lin Ti-chuan, a female opposition
politician from the southern Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, was
laid to rest in her hometown.
She died in China at the
end of July 1998, after being kidnapped and drugged
while she was accompanying her boyfriend on a business trip in in
the northeastern province of Liaoning in northern China.
DPP Kaohsiung City Councilwoman Ms. Lin Ti-chuan, age 32, went to
Dalian City on 27 July with her boyfriend, Mr. Wei Tien-kang, who is
an importer of magnesium metallic ore.
Her death caused an outrage in Taiwan, not only because of the
brutal way her life came to an end, but also because of the
high-handed way in which the Chinese authorities handled the matter:
when Ms. Lin's family arrived in China to bring her back home to
Taiwan for burial, the authorities at first refused to release the
body.
The DPP announced that it was suspending all contacts with China
because of the Chinese inept handling of the case.
At the funeral in Kaohsiung, Ms. Lin's coffin was covered with the
green-and-white DPP party flag, and some 1,000 people, including
leading Party members and local politicians, attended the funeral.
In China, the authorities subsequently arrested a number of
persons on suspicion of being involved in the murder, but the main
suspect, a mr. Li Guangzhi, who is said to have been the mastermind
behind the kidnap, is still at large.
The Taiwan authorities said that during the past few years, some
30 businesspeople had been murdered in China, while dozens received
murder or kidnap threats.
The most recent case is that of a Taiwanese businessman, Mr. Wang
Fujing, who was murdered by contract killers in the southern boom
city of Shenzhen. Wang, 40, from the Taiwanese port city of
Kaohsiung, was suffocated in Shenzhen on July 12 and his body was
stripped and thrown down a well.
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