Seventeen Chinese tourists disappear - TW

[dArKeR]

By Joy Su
STAFF REPORTER

A group of Chinese tourists has been missing since arriving in Taiwan last Tuesday, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) confirmed yesterday, on the eve of the annual Hankuang military exercises.

According to the council, all 17 members of the tour group failed to meet the Taiwanese travel agency that was to greet them at the airport last Tuesday. Two members of another tour group from China disappeared last Wednesday, and another the following day.

Council officials were quick to dismiss speculation about the tourists' disappearance, saying that the timing of the incident did not necessarily indicate any link to the Hankuang drills, or Beijing's military exercises on Dongshan island off Fujian Province and its test of ballistic missiles in Shanxi Province later this month.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/07/21/2003179770