China Team To Investigate Monk Murder In Taiwan

One monk was believed to have murdered the other monk in a hotel room before jumping out of a window to his death.

China has sent a six-member team to Taiwan to investigate the suspected murder of a Chinese monk by a fellow monk, who may then have leapt to his death from a 13th floor hotel window, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

Taiwanese media reported last week the two monks from eastern China's Jiangsu province were found dead at a hotel in Hsinchu, in northern Taiwan.

One monk was believed to have murdered the other monk in a hotel room before jumping out of a window to his death, reports quoted Taiwanese police as saying.

The Chinese team was comprised of a senior Buddhist leader from the Jiangsu provincial capital, Nanjing, family members and two religious affairs officials.

They would "seek more information about the incident from the Taiwan police and deal with the aftermath of the deaths", according to Xinhua, which said the two monks were part of a six-member group invited to Taiwan by a cultural foundation.

China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island at the end of the 1945-1949 civil war with the Communists' Red Army.

Relations have improved since China-friendly Taiwan President Ma Yingjeou took office in May, but mutual suspicions remain deep, and China has vowed to wrest the island democracy back by force, if necessary.