Remote sensing scientist Chen Kun-shan (陳錕山) was not involved in any sensitive research projects in Taiwan before he defected to China, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
Chen, head of the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research at National Central University (NCU) since 2001, disappeared in September last year. He is now working at China’s State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science under Beijing’s high-profile “Thousand Talents Program,” which seeks to attract overseas scientists.
In a front-page story yesterday, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) cited an intelligence source as saying that Chen’s defection posed a “serious threat” to Taiwan’s national security.
Photo: Hsieh Wen-hua, Taipei Times
As head of the center, Chen had access to satellite images covering Taiwan and China’s military deployments, and was in a category of government employees with access to state secrets and restricted from visiting China, the report said.
However, Ministry of Defense spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) yesterday said that Chen had undertaken research projects commissioned by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST, 中山科學研究院) and the ministry’s Communications Development Office, all of which were academic in nature and unrelated to key military technologies.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Education Secretary-General Wang Tsuo-tai (王作台) said that Chen was suspended by the university in November last year, two months after he went absent without leave.
Wang said the university learned through Chinese media reports in March that Chen had been hired to work at State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science.
The reports were later verified with Beijing through the Mainland Affairs Council, he added.
The university confirmed yesterday that it had decided on April 7 to dismiss Chen and had submitted his case to the Ministry of Education for final approval.
Kainan University vice president David Huang (黃適卓) yesterday lambasted Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧), accusing the education ministry of failing to implement proper preventive mechanisms on cross-strait academic interaction.
Huang said Chiang should take full responsibility for what he described as a “national security fiasco” and step down, as Chuang had been instrumental in promoting the disloyal Chen to his position at the NCU center.
Huang said China has long coveted Taiwanese technology and has been using the guise of academic interaction to implement its “united front” rhetoric.
Huang said that China is still absorbing what it can of Taiwan’s academic research, especially in nanotechnology, agricultural sciences and husbandry, and information technology, in which Taiwan has made significant advances.
Cooperation between academia and the military has a long history, and many military projects have sought the participation of educators, Huang said, adding that these professors have been targeted by Chinese intelligence for contact.
Before both sides of the Taiwan Strait agreed to academic exchanges, contacting Taiwanese academics had been the job of Taiwanese businesspeople in China, Huang said, adding that after academic exchanges were approved, China has used that channel to contact educators directly.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS