Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/10/26
By: Chen Chia-lun and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Oct. 26 (CNA) Taiwan’s top China policy maker said on Wednesday the

Shen Jui-chang (left second)

government considered regrettable a comment made by a Chinese official accusing Taiwan of making insufficient effort to secure the release of a Taiwanese sailor after the ship on which he worked was hijacked by Somali pirates in March 2012, resulting in him being held as a hostage for more than four years.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) was responding to An Fengshan (安峰山), spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, who said earlier in the day at a press conference that China’s semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) had notified its Taiwanese counterpart — the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) — about the condition of the ships’ crew on several occasions.     [FULL  STORY]