• Chen has been discovered in mainland China.
• Raising the potential of a defection amid increased tensions.
• Taiwan has procedures in place to decide if a soldier needs to be labelled a deserter.

Taiwan announced that a soldier who vanished last week from an island close to the Chinese coast had been discovered in mainland China.

Raising the potential of a highly uncommon defection amid increased tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

The soldier, with the last name Chen, has been informed by China that he is currently in mainland China, according to Chiu Tai-san, minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Relations Council, who was speaking to media.

The Taiwanese Military Ministry stated in a statement on Thursday that Chen was reported missing on Erdan island during a roll call and that it had formed a special task group to locate him.

The Chinese port city of Xiamen is less than 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) away from Erdan, which is a portion of the Kinmen islands under Taipei administration, in the southeast Fujian province.

Beijing has increased its diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on Taiwan in recent years. Taiwan is a self-governing democracy that the Chinese Communist Party claims as its own, despite never having been in power there.

In an effort to intimidate Taiwan and degrade its military hardware, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) often sends aircraft and warships close to the island.

Chiu claimed on Monday that the Taiwanese Defense Ministry has procedures in place to decide if the soldier needs to be labelled a deserter.

He added that the Taiwanese and Chinese sides have communication channels to handle emergency situations and combat crime.

“The defense ministry and coast guard administration are actively understanding the relevant progress and situation,” Chiu said.

Propaganda triumphs

Defection between the two sides used to happen more frequently, but lately it has been very uncommon.

The Taiwanese military experienced 20 cases of defections to China between 1949 and 1989, according to the island nation’s former minister of defense in 2002.

Defectors from both sides were praised for their propaganda successes and occasionally paid for their actions.

A Taiwanese Air Force major who defected to the mainland in 1981 was given a prize of $370,000 by China in exchange for the plane, which was a crucial piece of equipment for the PLA at the time.

Between China and Kinmen, other defectors would swim.

At low tide, the main island of Kinmen is only a little more than two kilometers away from the Chinese coast (1.6 miles).

A captain and company commander with the Taiwanese ground forces, Justin Lin, defected to China in 1979 by swimming across the channel.

After graduating from the esteemed Peking University, he went on to become a well-known economist.

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