Military secrets on sale to China

Liang Mei-ling, wife of the detained NSB official Pan Hsi-hsien, at a June 30 press conference after her husband left for China. PHOTO: FILE, TAIPEI TIMES

A retired National Security Bureau (NSB) chief who left for China and has been detained by authorities is not the only serviceman to have traveled to or worked in China recently, sources say.

In fact Pan Hsi-hsien (潘希賢), an ex-department chief with the NSB and now in custody in China, is just one of many retired servicemen who have gone to the mainland.

Pan was prohibited from traveling to China for up to three years after his retirement, because he handled classified information while serving in the personnel department of the NSB.

Investigations by the NSB found that Pan bypassed the law by getting a travel pass before the NSB had sent his information to customs authorities.

NSB Director General Ting Yu-chou (丁渝洲) has made assurances that Pan's arrest will not compromise state security because he did not have access to top-level classified information about Taiwan's intelligence operations in China.

Ting admitted, however, the NSB would be affected if Pan names personnel in the security agency.

This might be bad enough, but as the NSB and other intelligence branches try to repair the damage and prevent further lapses, other incidents have surfaced.

The most alarming of these findings is the case of a retired air force major leaking top-level classified information about F-16 jet fighters to the Chinese military during visits to China.

The major, a former F-16 pilot, was suspected of having told the Chinese about the combat conditions in which a F-16 would fire its medium-range Sparrow air-to-air missiles.

"This information is critical in air combat. If the Chinese air force knows the distance and altitude at which Taiwan's F-16s can detect Su-27s with radar, before firing Sparrow missiles at `beyond-visual-range' then all our air combat tactics will become useless, " the sources said.

"If our fighter planes cannot shoot down invading aircraft beyond visual range, all the high-tech weapons we have on board will be redundant and air combat will be reduced to traditional dog-fighting," they said.

"China's Jian-6 fighter planes have out-maneuvered the US-made F-16s in low-altitude and close-range simulated encounters," the sources said because most of the F-16s secrets have been given to the Chinese.

The air force now has only the Indigenous Defense Fighter plane, whose specifications are not known by Chinese intelligence agencies.

"We are not sure whether China has obtained other top-level classified information such as plans and tactics for a revenge strike against China in the event of an attack initiated by China," the sources said.

Intelligence sources declined to reveal whether the military had taken any counter measures against the major suspected to have leaked the information about the F-16s.

Reasons given for the former combat pilot's betrayal of his country include problems with the wide-ranging and long-running Chingshih personnel streamlining program, according to a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The Chingshih program is aimed at removing surplus personnel, but in practice, it affects a certain group of people, mid-ranking officers, particularly badly. These officers have to fight hard for dwindling positions and have to retire if there are no vacancies for them," said the official.

"Not all the officers who retire early in this way are willing to leave gracefully. Some of them bear a strong dislike of the military leadership, who they think have built their reputation at their expense," he said.

"These officers cannot understand why younger people have to be sacrificed for older ones. In the Combined Services Force, for instance, there are more colonels than are needed. If these colonels stay on longer, other lower-ranking officers have to retire," he said.

Early retirement for medium-ranking officers means they are denied a retirement pension if they are unable to serve the required 20 years.

Investigations showed that a large number of medium-ranking officers retiring from the service over the past few years have gone to China to take up business opportunities. Among these officers are personnel who have been responsible for combat tactics at division or brigade level.

"We are not sure how many of these retired officers have committed acts that compromise national security. But we did find cases of information for cash," an army official said.

"We cannot do much about it. It not within our means to keep our eyes on every retired servicemen. What can we do about ex-officers discovered to have leaked information to the Chinese? It takes money and manpower to collect enough evidence to bring these people to justice." the official said.

"There are far too many weak points in Taiwan's national security system.

"If you want to collect information on a military base in Taiwan, you can start with the stores neighboring the bases. You will find that all the information you need is available just for the asking," he said.

Pan Hsi-hsien, who retired from the NSB on June 1 and left for China on June 4, has been in the custody of Chinese security forces since July 1. His release has been requested by the Straits Exchange Foundation.

Since his disappearance, there has been widespread speculation on how many other people within the NSB knew Pan was intending to travel to China, and exactly why he did so.

Sources said political in-fighting within the NSB could have been a cause and reports have also surfaced of tension between Pan and Ting, over Pan's allegedly forced retirement, which denied him a full pension, after Pan was involved in a drink driving accident.