DATE=8/30/1999 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=CHINA - TAIWAN SPY (L ONLY) NUMBER=2-253248 BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON DATELINE=BEIJING CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: China has sentenced an official in its southern island province of Hainan to life in prison for spying for Taiwan. VOA correspondent Roger Wilkison reports one of the province's top authorities has been fired and expelled from the Communist Party for negligence in the case. TEXT: An appeals court in Hainan Monday confirmed the life sentence meted out to Xi Shiguo, whom it identified as an assistant researcher in the provincial government. A court official in Haikou, the provincial capital, says Mr. Xi's co-defendant -a Taiwanese he identified as Xiong Tianjun (Hsiung Tien-chun)- also received a heavy sentence, but he would not say what it was. The two men were originally convicted in June. At the time, the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily identified Mr. Xiong as an employee of Taiwanese military intelligence. It said Mr. Xiong recruited Mr. Xi and paid him a total of 93-hundred dollars between July 1996 and March 1997, when Mr. Xi was arrested. In announcing the appeals court verdict Monday, China's official Xinhua news agency said Mr. Xi was guilty of spying for what it called an overseas intelligence agency, but did not say for which country. It also did not mention Mr. Xiong. When the case was first disclosed two months ago, the People's Daily said Mr. Xi allowed Mr. Xiong to photograph or photocopy nearly 100 classified documents on political, economic and national security matters. The episode is the latest in a 50-year-old espionage war between China and Taiwan. It comes as the two rivals are locked in a new confrontation following Taiwan's insistence that it be treated as an equal in its dealings with China. Beijing regards the island as a wayward province and its government as illegitimate. The Xinhua report says protection of classified documents in the Hainan government was chaotic. It says Lin Kechang -the deputy secretary-general of the provincial government- has been held responsible for the lax security. Mr. Lin was removed from his post and expelled from the Communist Party. Seven other provincial officials have also been disciplined for negligence in the case. (Signed) NEB/RW/FC/kl 30-Aug-1999 07:32 AM EDT (30-Aug-1999 1132 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .
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