On December 24, 2025, the Weihai Municipal Public Security Bureau in East China's Shandong Province issued a wanted notice stating that in June 2025, during an investigation into a suspect surnamed Liu and six other mainland crew members of the "Hongtai 58," police uncovered a smuggling syndicate led by Taiwan residents Jian Wensheng and Chen Shunjin. Photo: Screenshot of a notice from the bureau

After the Chinese mainland's public security authorities issued wanted notice for two individuals from the island of Taiwan on the illegal smuggling case involving Hongtai 58 incident, the China Central Television (CCTV) reveal in a program aired on Thursday the truth behind the Hongtai 58 incident: an accident involving a smuggling ship was manipulated into a political conspiracy.

The two individuals - surnamed Chien and Chen are ringleaders of a gang long entrenched in Taiwan region, controlling multiple vessels to smuggle frozen goods into the mainland, the CCTV report said. 

It was their smuggling ship, the Hongtai 58, that accidentally struck and damaged undersea cables, leading to the detention of eight mainland crew members by the DPP authorities. Disregarding the facts, the DPP authorities swiftly hyped the incident as a case of the mainland's "gray-zone harassment," maliciously stoking cross-Straits confrontation, according to the CCTV report. 

On June 30, 2025, while investigating Liu and six other mainland crew members of the Hongtai 58, police in Weihai, Shandong Province uncovered a smuggling ring led by Taiwan residents Chien and Chen. The group was found to have controlled multiple vessels, including the Togo-flagged Hongtai 58, to conduct long-term smuggling of frozen goods into the mainland. Police subsequently opened a criminal case and, on December 24, issued wanted notices offering rewards for the arrest of Chien and Chen, the report said. 

Born in 1971 and a native of New Taipei City, Taiwan, Chien was placed on a wanted list by the Zhangzhou customs anti-smuggling bureau in 2014 on suspicion of smuggling waste. In 2024, he was sentenced by the Kaohsiung court in Taiwan to six months' imprisonment for cigarette smuggling.

Chen, born in 1948 and a native of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, was also placed on a wanted list by the Zhangzhou customs anti-smuggling bureau in 2014 on suspicion of smuggling waste.

Chien and Chen worked together in the smuggling of frozen goods. The goods were taken from various ports in Taiwan and from Busan, South Korea, and then transported to the high seas near Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangsu, where they were resold, Pan Haiming, a person detained by the police, was quoted as saying in the report.

Chien had broader personal connections in Taiwan and was responsible for sourcing cargo for smuggling vessels such as the Hongtai 58, handling port entry and exit procedures, arranging customs declarations, and altering certain vessel certificates.

As for Chen, after the vessels returned to Taiwan, he was in charge of maintenance work, including repairs, repainting, and refueling. The two worked in close coordination over a long period, continually engaging in smuggling activities.

In early January 2025, the engine of the Hongtai 58 suddenly began leaking water.

The flooding of the engine room was an unexpected incident for the smuggling gang. Although the vessel was soon repaired, rough seas forced it to remain at anchor to seek shelter from the weather. At 2:30 am on February 25, 2025, a vessel of the Tainan Coast Guard team under Taiwan's "Coast Guard authority" arrived at a location six nautical miles northwest of Jiangjun Fishing Harbor, where it found the Hongtai 58 anchored and lingering, and immediately conducted a broadcast ordering it to leave the area.

A crew member surnamed Liu of the vessel Hongtai 58 Photo: Screenshot CCTV report

"They told us to weigh anchor and leave immediately. We had been underway for about half an hour when Taiwan's 'Coast Guard authority' called us and said that when we weighed anchor, we had damaged their undersea cable, so they wouldn't let us leave," a crew member surnamed Liu was quoted as saying in the report. 

On the afternoon of February 25, Taiwan's "Coast Guard authority" announced that the Taiwan-Penghu No. 3 undersea cable had been severed, and that the Togo-flagged vessel Hongtai 58, which it claimed had a mainland capital background, was a major suspect. 

On February 26, the captain of the Hongtai 58, surnamed Wang, was brought before the Tainan district prosecutors office after it applied for his detention on allegations of violating the so-called "Telecommunications Management Act," while the remaining seven crew members were placed under exit restrictions.

On the afternoon of February 25, Taiwan's "Coast Guard authority" said that all eight crew members on board were mainland residents and did not rule out the possibility that the incident was part of a "gray-zone" harassment operation by the mainland. On February 27, before the nature of the case had been ascertained, Cho Jung-tai, chief of the island's executive body, publicly claimed that the detention of the vessel and its crew was a lawful exercise of necessary judicial control, and asserted that the mainland was undermining social stability in Taiwan through so-called gray-zone harassment—deliberately shifting the blame onto the mainland.

Yin Jian, political commissar of Weihai Public Security Bureau Photo: Screenshot of a CCTV report

According to our investigation, the so-called undersea cable malfunction was caused by an accident during smuggling activities carried out by a criminal gang centered on Taiwan residents Chien and Chen, who were operating the vessel Hongtai 58 and were driven off by Taiwan's "Coast Guard authority," accidentally damaging the Taiwan Straits cable. It was not, as claimed by the DPP authorities, an intentional act of sabotage, Yin Jian, political commissar of Weihai Public Security Bureau, was quoted as saying in the report. 

The DPP authorities in Taiwan, however, have disregarded the facts, deliberately covering up the reality that Chien and Chen used ports in the island as transit hubs for smuggling frozen goods, and have fabricated and hyped the so-called "gray zone harassment operations," politicizing and labeling the undersea cable malfunction incident, the CCTV report said. 

In handling this incident, Taiwan's judicial authority have completely become a political tool of the DPP, Chen Xing, professor at the Taiwan Research Institute of Beijing Union University, was quoted as saying in the report. They rushed to build a case despite insufficient evidence, restricted the freedom of the crew, and engaged in rampant smearing of the mainland, with clear traces of over-politicization, the professor said. 

Such actions are like lifting a rock only to drop it on one's own foot for the DPP. On one hand, they cause significant damage to its credibility; on the other hand, they also deal a serious blow to cross-Strait relations, Chen Xing said.