The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday confirmed that four active duty personnel and two retired officers are under investigation in connection with a case involving allegations that New Party spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) tried to develop media and espionage networks with financial backing from the Chinese government.
“There are four people on active duty and two retired officers who have been summoned for the investigation and were questioned as witnesses. As of now, there is no indication of their involvement in the case,” spokesman Major General Chen Chung-chi (陳中吉) said in response to questions during a regular news conference at the ministry.
From his understanding, the four men on active duty had “liked” posts by Wang on Facebook and other social media platforms, he said.
Photo: CNA
Since the case is under judicial investigation, Chen said he could not divulge the ranks of those who were questioned, and he also declined to reveal their assigned units.
All military personnel are schooled on safeguarding national security, espionage activities by China and how Chinese spies conduct their work, he said.
“Additional courses are also given to officers who are nearing retirement,” Chen said. “We provide examples from previous spy cases to show how Chinese operatives enticed former officers, including offering money, beautiful women for sex, business opportunities, helping to alleviate financial problems and even blackmail and threats.”
According to the investigation by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) allegedly promised to pay Wang NT$15 million (US$506,757) per year to operate the Web site Fire News (燎原新聞網), which he launched in 2014 with its registered address at the New Party’s Taipei headquarters.
Prosecutors said Chinese national Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭), who was on Sept. 15 last year convicted on espionage charges, acted as a consultant to promote the Web site.
The two men allegedly organized seminars and group events to recruit Taiwanese for Chinese government networks and to pass on sensitive materials, the prosecutors’ office said.
Wang was arrested and questioned last month in connection with Zhou’s espionage case along with fellow New Party Youth Corps members Hou Han-ting (侯漢廷), Lin Ming-cheng (林明正) and Chen Ssu-chun (陳斯俊).
According to investigators, Zhou was instructed by the TAO to recruit current and retired military personnel through Wang as part of an operation codenamed “Star Fire T Project” (星火T計劃), which offered financial rewards depending on the value and level of the contacts.
Prosecutors said that Hou and Lin provided personal information on the six men for Zhou to use in recruitment efforts, while Wang and Chen had reportedly encouraged young people to sign up for military schools with the aim that they might become spies or moles and perhaps even rise to become high-ranking officers.
In related news, Taipei prosecutors yesterday confirmed that members of the public have filed legal complaints against Wang and two other New Party members for allegedly violating the National Security Act (國家安全法), and that a separate investigation against them has been launched.
It was also reported that prosecutors are investigating the source and channels of distribution of the alleged TAO funding for Fire News and additional activities, along with the allegation that Wang’s father had received US$20,000 in cash from the TAO, but “lost it.”
Investigators reportedly have evidence that Lin received monthly bank deposits of NT$25,000, which matched the amount listed by Zhou in his Fire News 2015 Year-end Working Report, and that information from files in Zhou’s computer had been corroborated by files found in possession of the four arrested New Party members.
Prosecutors said the material pointed to the men’s close cooperation in developing networks funded by China, which would contravene the National Security Act.
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS