Chinese reports say Kenyan authorities are in the process of sending 45 Taiwanese and 32 Chinese who had been detained there in November 2014 and April this year to Beijing. (File Photo)
A group of Taiwanese, whose deportation from Kenya to Beijing sparked protests from Taiwan's government, are being investigated by Chinese legal authorities for suspected wire fraud, a Chinese spokesman said Wednesday.
Chinese reports say Kenyan authorities are in the process of sending 45 Taiwanese and 32 Chinese who had been detained there in November 2014 and April this year to Beijing.
Taiwan's government has protested the Kenyan move and accused China of violating a tacit agreement not to interfere in the legal affairs of Taiwanese abroad.
However, Chinese police have jurisdiction under Chinese law in cases where the victims were Chinese, and it is necessary to detain the Taiwanese in Beijing to aid in the investigation, spokesman for the Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office, An Fengshan, told a news conference.
"Since these crimes were committed overseas and all the victims are citizens from the mainland, the mainland authorities certainly possess the right of jurisdiction," An said. "The legal rights and interests of the criminal suspects will be guaranteed according to the law," he said.
An said Taiwanese authorities had not done enough to crack down on such gangs led by Taiwanese, which China says have defrauded its citizens and companies of hundreds of millions of dollars.
"They have caused a tremendous loss to citizens of the Chinese mainland. The rights and interests of the victims could not be guaranteed," An said.
China says the 77 Chinese and Taiwanese being deported were among a group of 117 detained in Kenya for running phone scams.
The official Xinhua News Agency also cited unidentified judicial officials as saying Taiwanese police and prosecutors were welcome to visit the mainland to explore ways of boosting cooperation between the sides in cracking down on such international criminal groups. Taiwan's leading official for relations with China said a group of officials would visit by the end of the week.
The deportations have sparked a complicated diplomatic tussle that threatens to cause further rifts between Taipei and Beijing.
China considers Taiwan as Chinese territory and says that only it can represent the island in international society, although it has softened its stance in recent years in order to avoid further alienating residents of the self-governing island. Diplomatically isolated Taiwan has no formal ties with Kenya.
The Nairobi incident could be an indication that Beijing is toughening its attitude again ahead of the May 20 inauguration of Taiwanese President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, who has refused to agree to China's demand that she recognize Taiwan and mainland China as parts of a single Chinese nation.
Taiwan has also complained about Kenya's handling of the deportations. China has close ties with Kenya, extending generous financial assistance to the East African nation.
A Kenyan government official on Tuesday denied Taiwanese claims that tear gas was used to force some of the Taiwanese to board the flight to Beijing, although he did say some of the group had resisting being deported.
Some of the Taiwanese deportees have already arrived, but the detention center in Beijing believed to be holding them declined to confirm their presence, while the spokesman's office for the city's police department did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the issue.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)