Taiwan-China spy swap confirmed

The Taiwanese defence ministry on Monday confirmed that two of its senior intelligence agents kidnapped and held by China for the past nine years have been released and repatriated in October in exchange for one of its own.

The spy swap marked the first of its kind across the Taiwan Strait following the meeting between Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore last month, the Taiwan News reported.

"The two agents have since returned from Beijing on October 13 after a unilateral agreement reached on both sides," ministry spokesman David Lo confirmed, citing that Hong Kong national Li Zhihao, who was serving a life sentence for espionage in Taiwan, had his request for a parole granted and was also released in late October after spending 16 years in jail.

Taiwan military Intelligence officials Chu Kung-hsun and Hsu Chang-kuo were kidnapped in Vietnam and taken to China in 2006.

Chu was the highest-ranking Taiwanese intelligence officer to be arrested in China in a decade, who was in charge of the Military Intelligence Bureau's spying work in the mainland.

According to reports, prior to Hong Kong's return to China in 1997, the bureau directed its intelligence-gathering in China from the territory, but afterward moved its operations to Southeast Asia.

At the time, Chu was in charge of a dozen intelligence stations in the region.