Taipei prosecutors yesterday indicted retired air force lieutenant colonel Liu Chi-ju (劉其儒) on suspicion of collaborating with a major espionage network on behalf of China.
Prosecutors said they had earlier indicted Chinese national Zhen Xiaojiang (鎮小江), who retired from China’s People’s Liberation Army as a captain, on charges of espionage.
Zhen is alleged to have recruited several air force officers into his spy ring.
Photo: CNA
Prosecutors said their investigation into Zhen’s activities discovered that Liu, who retired from the air force in 2005, played an instrumental role in the recruiting of active and retired air force officers to spy for China, including a former officer of the Air Force Academy Flight Training Command surnamed Ke Chi-hsien (葛季賢), along with Lou Wen-ching (樓文卿), who is still on active duty at the academy.
Liu has been charged with violating the National Security Act (國家安全法). Ke and Lou have also been indicted, although investigators are still trying to determine if they leaked any classified information.
Prosecutors said that Zhen enticed a number of air force officers to join his spy ring by offering money and all-expenses-paid vacations, including Lieutenant Colonel Chou Tzu-li (周自立) and Major General Hsu Nai-chuan (許乃權), who later recruited several colleagues and former academy classmates to spy for China.
A number of pieces of classified information were leaked to Chinese intelligence agents, prosecutors said.
Zhen, Chou and Hsu have been held incommunicado and denied bail since their arrest, amid concerns they might try to flee the country.
Liu’s exact whereabouts are not known. He has been residing in China, where he ran a business, since he left the service.
Prosecutors said that when they asked Ke why he had betrayed his country after having such a distinguished career, he remained silent.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS