A Taiwanese businessman once jailed in China as a "Taiwan spy" has resurfaced publicly alongside the KMT chairwoman, a reminder that detentions of Taiwanese nationals in China keep climbing.

• Lee Meng-chu, held in China after vanishing in 2019 and later paraded on state TV to confess, has been back in Taiwan for over three years.
• He appeared this month at a Cambridge-Oxford-Harvard alumni dinner in Taipei, which he helped organize and fund, in a photo with KMT chair Cheng Li-wun.
• Another named in China's "Taiwan spy" cases, retired professor Shih Cheng-ping, has quietly returned home after serving four years.
• Both men faced extra years of "deprivation of political rights" that blocked them from leaving China even after release.
• Taiwan's mainland affairs body counts 419 nationals who went missing, were detained for questioning, or were held in China since early 2024 — up again from the last tally.

Outlook: The detention count is likely to keep rising, keeping travel to China a live political risk as the KMT's new leadership courts Beijing.