China defends actions in Taiwan fugitive case

BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) China defended itself today for failing to detain a fugitive wanted by Taiwan for a high-profile financial scandal but said it would repatriate a robbery suspect to the island.

Wang You-theng, chairman of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group, fled to China more than two weeks ago, a day after two of his group's listed units said they would reorganise after years of mounting debts and heavy losses, local media reported.

Depositors reacted by racing to withdraw funds from a bank owned by the group, from which Wang was accused of stealing millions of dollars, leading to a government takeover.

''The accusation in Taiwan that the mainland has not helped to repatriate Wang is groundless,'' Yang Yi, spokesman for China's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office, told a news conference.

Yang said that he did not know when Wang had arrived in Shanghai or when he had left China's financial hub. He is believed to have flown to the United States with his wife on Saturday, media reported.

Premier Su Tseng-chang asked China on Sunday to return Wang to the self-ruled island via a third country. Taiwan prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him on Monday.

''According to Taiwan media reports, Wang left the mainland before the arrest warrant was issued. Then is there a repatriation question here?'' Yang said, adding that Wang had legitimate travel documents to enter and exit China.

China split with Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 when the defeated Nationalist government fled to the island. The diplomatic and military foes lack a detailed suspect repatriation agreement.

A spokesman for the American Institute in Taipei, a de facto embassy, said that Taiwan authorities had asked U.S.

counterparts for help in tracking Wang.

Yang, the Chinese spokesman, said that a Taiwan man suspected of pulling off a T million armoured vehicle heist in Taipei would be returned to the island.

''The exact repatriation date will be set by Red Cross groups on the two sides,'' Yang said.

Chinese police caught the 44-year-old armoured truck driver in the southwestern province of Yunnan last Wednesday, a week after the robbery. He had fled to the mainland via Hong Kong.

REUTERS BDP KP0953