Pan Hsi-hsien (潘希賢), the former personnel department chief at the National Security Bureau, has likely left China to join his wife in the US, an intelligence source told the Taipei Times yesterday.
The bureau believes Pan had been detained by Chinese authorities since his arrival there last June. According to the intelligence source, Pan, a retired major general, has not show any interest in returning to Taiwan, and the bureau does not want him to come back, either.
In June last year Pan left for China several days after his forced early retirement due to a drunk driving incident. He reportedly went to China to work at a Taiwanese-owned company in Guangdong Province.
"Pan's return would only create problems for the National Security Bureau. The bureau has already suffered a lot from a string of face-losing incidents, starting with Pan's unapproved departure to China shortly after his retirement," the source said.
"Pan's wife has already settled down somewhere in the US. She has arranged everything for him, including the removal of the family's financial assets from Taiwan to the US," he said.
The security bureau declined to confirm the source's comments, saying they have no knowledge of Pan's whereabouts.
"We just know Pan is confined to a certain area in China. He can move freely in that area, but only in that area. He has cut off contacts with the Taiwanese-owned company in Guangdong Province," a spokeswoman from the bureau told the Taipei Times.
A local cable television station, quoting an official with the Guangdong company with which Pan used to be affiliated, also reported yesterday that he had been released by China and was on his way to the US.
Last September, three months after Pan's reported arrest by Chinese authorities, he almost managed to secretly leave China for the US, intelligence information indicates. He planned to leave Guangzhou for the US through Hong Kong, but later cancelled the plan after making a phone call to the security bureau in Taiwan.
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