The man identified as Jia Wei said he hoped Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou would grant him asylum.
Jia Wei was arrested by Taiwanese coast guards as he washed up on the island of Lesser Kinmen, a small islet close to Taiwan’s offshore island of Kinmen.
He told coast guards that he had swum for eight hours from the Chinese city of Xiamen, approximately 6km from Lesser Kinmen.
"He said he was from Xinjiang originally, and swam here with the help of two inflatable buoyant balloons," said Chin Kuang-hui, director of the Kinmen Coastal Patrol, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Unrest is common in Xinjiang Province in China’s far West, with widespread support for independence movements among its non-Chinese Uygur population.
However Jia Wei is a member of China’s Han majority, and coast guards later discovered that he had been a Chinese soldier posted in Xinjiang.
Police are checking his background and may appeal to a third country to accept him.
