The Executive Yuan has submitted a proposal to amend the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法) to the legislature, which, if passed, would boost the penalties for people convicted of spying for China.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have also submitted draft amendments, and the Judiciary Committee is expected to review the bills on Wednesday and Thursday.
There are concerns about loopholes in the national security laws, including not recognizing China as a foreign state, which means that people spying for China are not considered foreign agents, DPP lawmakers said.
Other problems include the law not distinguishing between leaking secrets to Taiwanese and leaking secrets to foreign nationals, and not enumerating specific penalties, they said.
Under the Executive Yuan’s bill, the maximum sentence for passing top secret classified information to China would be increased from seven years in prison to 15 years.
The bill would also increase the length of sentences for leaking secrets to foreign citizens or Chinese nationals, including residents of Hong Kong and Macau, from the current one to seven years to three to 10 years, and increase the sentence length for illegal disclosure of top secret information by 50 percent, raising the maximum sentence from 10 years to 15 years.
The Executive Yuan bill also stipulates stiffer sentences for disclosing unclassified but privileged information to foreign citizens and Chinese nationals, or for probing for such information on their behalf, and stipulates that attempted breaches of the act are to be subjected to specific punishments.
Government ministries and agencies would no longer have the power to reduce the three-year period of required vetting for former government employees with security clearances who want to travel abroad, according to the Executive Yuan’s bill.
DPP Legislator Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) has submitted a draft bill broadly similar to the Executive Yuan’s proposal, while a number of other DPP lawmakers have also suggested amendments.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng’s (羅致政) proposal stipulates that those convicted of spying on behalf of “hostile foreign powers” should receive a 50 percent increase to their prison term.
A proposal by DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) would link the length of a prison sentence to the classification level of the compromised information, with those disclosing top secret information to foreign states potentially receiving a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The country’s efforts at international military and intelligence cooperation and arms procurement have been repeatedly frustrated because allies fear their secrets could be compromised by Chinese operatives, Lo said.
“Increasing the penalty against communist spies is, without a doubt, an urgent national security priority,” he said.
DPP Legislator Wang Ding-yu’ (王定宇) has also proposed a new amendment to Clause 10 of the Criminal Code to clarify the term “adversary” in terms of expanding the definition of treason in the code to include “collusion with an adversary,” updating a proposal that he submitted last year, another lawmaker said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS