Former Chinese student Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭) was detained incommunicado on suspicion of recruiting people for a spy ring while enrolled at a Taipei university and trying to coerce government officials into passing on classified materials.
The Taipei District Court yesterday cited the risk of 29-year-old Zhou fleeing the nation and an ongoing investigation.
Prosecutors and officers of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau National Security Section on Thursday raided Zhou’s rented apartment in Taipei, confiscating his computer and mobile phone.
Screengrab from Facebook
Zhou was taken into custody for questioning by prosecutors, who said there was sufficient evidence to charge him with violating the National Security Act (國家安全法)
He had tried to develop a spy ring as a student and attempted to obtain classified materials from universities and government agencies, prosecutors said.
In 2009, Zhou, then 21 and enrolled at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, reportedly came to Taiwan as an exchange student for a business and finance program at New Taipei City’s Tamkang University.
Zhou later enrolled in a master of business administration program at Taipei-based National Chengchi University (NCCU) from September 2012 to July last year and returned to China after obtaining his degree.
Last month, Zhou returned to Taiwan on an “investment and business” visa to work at a firm in Taipei, officials said.
His Facebook page is full of a photographs documenting his travels around the nation and attending various events, as he was reportedly active in campus networking activities, and had accumulated more than 1,400 friends on the social network.
Prosecutors said that Zhou tried to entice a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official with a US dollar reward and an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan, in exchange for classified materials that would be delivered to a contact in Japan.
Bureau officials said they believe Zhou was instructed by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) to enroll at NCCU, where he was to actively make friends and develop a spy ring, adding that he had tried to recruit students and government officials.
“There have been 55 Chinese espionage cases since 2008, but that figure is only the tip of the iceberg,” said a bureau official investigating the case, who asked not to be named. “China has sent numerous operatives under different covers to infiltrate our society and government agencies.”
Zhou’s is the first known case of a Chinese student being investigated for espionage since they were allowed to enroll at Taiwanese universities during the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The Mainland Affairs Council yesterday said its policies on Chinese students remained unchanged, despite Zhou’s case.
“However, Chinese students studying in Taiwan should abide by our laws and make learning their priority,” the council said, adding that it would respect authorities’ handling of the case.
Urging both sides of the Taiwan Strait to cherish the long-term achievements of student exchanges, the council said the government would continue efforts to attract Chinese students, in a bid to promote mutual understanding between young people on both sides of the Strait and to facilitate cross-strait peace.
Separately yesterday, TAO spokesman spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said in Beijing that “the Taiwan authority’s accusation against the office on this matter is pure fabrication intended to stir up trouble.”
“This has come at a time when Taiwanese independence forces have been hyping up a ‘serious infiltration by Chinese spies in Taiwan,’ so we question the motives behind the case,” he said.
“Taiwan has interfered in normal cross-strait exchanges between schools, and now it is making a big deal about a Chinese student there,” Ma Xiaoguang said. “This will only further damage the goodwill between compatriots and harm educational exchange programs, resulting in the cross-strait relationship deteriorating.”
Additional reporting by Stacy Hsu and CNA
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS