A retired Taiwanese professor imprisoned in China on spying charges is back home, a quiet win for his family but a reminder of how risky travel to China has become for Taiwanese.

• Shih Cheng-ping, a retired National Taiwan Normal University associate professor, disappeared in China in 2018 and was sentenced to four years for spying, plus two years stripped of political rights.
• He finished his sentence in 2024 and has now returned to Taiwan without publicity.
• Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council confirmed it is tracking such cases but declined to give details.
• He was one of four Taiwanese paraded on Chinese state TV in 2020 to confess and apologize on camera.
• Others from that group fared worse: Tsai Chin-shu is still barred from leaving China, and Cheng Yu-chin remains locked up on a seven-year sentence.

Outlook: Taipei is unlikely to say more publicly, and the remaining detainees look set to stay in China while cross-strait tensions hold.