Cambodia says arrested Taiwanese fraud suspects handed over to China

(Reuters) -Cambodia said on Tuesday it had arrested a number of “Chinese criminals” in late March, including individuals from Taiwan, and days later handed them over to Chinese authorities, in deportations that have angered Taipei.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said on Monday that Cambodia had sent an unknown number of Taiwanese citizens to China after they were arrested working in telecom scam centres.

In a statement, a Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman said the decision to send the arrested people to China was in accordance with Cambodian law and adhered to Beijing’s “one China” policy, which states that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is due in Cambodia this week on a Southeast Asian tour that began in Vietnam on Monday and will also include Malaysia.

“The individuals handed over to the Chinese authorities are criminals, not ordinary people, and the handover of these individuals to the government of the People’s Republic of China is no different from the practice by some other countries adhering to the ‘one China’ policy,” it added.

The ministry did not say how many people had been deported to China.

China’s foreign ministry said it had no information about the deportations.

Taipei says Cambodia arrested 180 Taiwanese suspected of working in fraud centres and that on Sunday and early on Monday almost 190 people were deported to China at the Chinese government’s request.

Cambodia is one of China’s closest allies in Southeast Asia, and Taiwan does not have a de facto embassy there, unlike in many other parts of the region.

Hsiao Kuang-wei, Taiwan foreign ministry spokesperson, told reporters in Taipei earlier on Tuesday that the government was still trying to find out exactly how many Taiwanese had been deported.

“The foreign ministry again calls on our nationals not to take a chance and go overseas to engage in unlawful activities,” he added.

Taiwan has previously complained about countries including Cambodia, Kenya and Spain deporting its nationals to China following their arrest on suspicion of involvement in telecom fraud schemes.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory. Taiwan strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Kate Mayberry)