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China's Falun Gong claims denied

The government yesterday denied Beijing's accusation that Falun Gong followers had used Taiwan as a base to hack into China's satellite television stations. But the Cabinet's spokesman said the issue highlighted the need for cross-strait dialogue.

"As broadcasts by Taiwan's television stations have also been hijacked by stations based in China, we thought it'd be a good idea for both sides to set aside political differences and deal with this and other problems," Cabinet Spokesman Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢) told a press conference.

Chuang was responding to China's accusation on Tuesday that, from Sept. 9 to Saturday, illegal satellite broadcasters in Taiwan hijacked regular Chinese television programs and beamed propaganda from the Falun Gong spiritual group, which is banned in China.

Beijing also alleged that Falun Gong members had been interrupting several Chinese television satellite broadcasts since June with messages supporting their group.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office yesterday held a press conference to demand Taiwan take immediate steps to halt the illegal broadcasts.

"Falun Gong has been ... sabotaging cross-strait relations over the years," said the office's spokesman, Zhang Mingqing (張銘清). "Compounding the problem is Taiwan's conniving with them. Bilateral ties will suffer if Taipei does not take effective measures to stop transmissions by the group, which is an evil cult," Zhang said.

Chuang denied the accusations but said that the government was looking into the matter.

"Investigations have not proved the accusations to be true," Chuang said.

He said that the government would not interfere with the group unless it was found to be breaking the law.

"As a democratic country, we totally respect the right of spiritual or religious groups to hold authorized activities," he said.

But he said the two sides of the Strait should open up communication channels to deal with crime.

Chuang said one of Taiwan's problems was Chinese hackers breaking into the government's computers.

"Between November last year and July this year hackers based in China broke into 216 computers at 42 government institutions via a back-up computer processing unit at Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信)," he said.

Although the information stolen was non-sensitive research material, Chuang said, it was the most systematic and large-scale hacker break-in of its kind in Taiwan.

Telecommunications authorities vowed to crack down on illegal satellite broadcasts, although officials were skeptical about China's claims.

"Technically, there are ways to check if signals beamed from satellites are hijacked, but it is hard to locate the source of signals sent to satellites, particularly when the source is mobile," said Chien Jen-ter (簡仁德), chief of the Directorate General of Telecommunications under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

Lin Ching-chich, director of the radio spectrum management department at the Directorate General of Telecommunications, told reporters, ``This type of accusation is a bit far-fetched.''

Lin said that China has argued that the source of the hacking was on Yangmingshan, near Taipei.

But Lin was skeptical that China could accurately pinpoint the source.

He said that the attack could have originated from anywhere in Taiwan or its neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean.
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