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Lawmakers warn against spies

Legislators from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday called for heightened vigilance against Chinese spies infiltrating Taiwan in the run-up to the presidential election on March 20 next year.

The recent discovery of a number of alleged spying incidents involving professionals from Taiwan's Military Intelligence Bureau (MIB) and the military's Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (CIST) shows that Chinese intelligence authorities have accelerated their efforts to infiltrate Taiwan by recruiting or "buying" Taiwan cells to work for them, according to DPP Legislator Trong Chai (蔡同榮).

Chai and four other DPP legislators released a joint statement calling for the government to keep a closer watch against the growing tendency of Chinese infiltration. It said that since Taiwan's power transition in 2000, Chinese intelligence-gathering individuals have infiltrated the country's political, military, administrative and legislative systems in attempts to collect vital information that could undermine Taiwan's national security and overall development.

The statement said that Chinese intelligence authorities contact their Taiwan agents overseas and have established cells in Taiwan. These cells have been working inside important organizations such as the MIB and the CIST and have gathered intelligence using threats or bribes.

Huang Cheng-an (黃正安), a senior researcher with CIST's Second Department -- Taiwan's pivotal missile and rocket research and development center -- was arrested on Saturday on charges of allegedly supplying precision-guided weapons information to China and collaborating with others to establish a company in Egypt to sell information on how to produce such missiles.

It is alleged that Huang was also involved in negotiations for the sale of "smart bombs" and other weapons.

According to Ministry of National Defense (MND) sources, the 55-year-old Huang visited Egypt twice over the past year to meet Taiwan and Middle East munitions merchants to jointly produce smart bombs and other weapons to be sold to Egypt and other Middle East countries. However, ministry officials speculate that the plan to produce weapons fell through due to the failure of the principals to acquire key technology.

Huang, nevertheless, was found to have been negotiating, via go-betweens, with Chinese authorities to supply important information on the production of smart bombs and other missiles that he said he could obtain from the CIST at a cost of US$1 million, the ministry officials said.

Smart bombs first made their appearance in the 1991 Gulf War and since then they have been improved and are smaller and more accurate and are greatly sought after by the world's weapons dealers.

Military investigators suspect that Huang's ex-wife, to whom he was divorced only this August, is a Chinese intelligence agent who came to Taiwan some 10 years ago. Investigators believe that she navigated her way through key military establishments by having married at least three CIST researchers, including Huang.

Military investigators said that they are also suspicious that Huang's girlfriend, known to be an Internet-savvy individual whom Huang met online, could also be a Chinese spy.

Earlier this month, former MIB officer Tseng Chao-wen (曾昭文) and current MIB officer Chen Suei-chung (陳穗瓊) were detained for allegedly collecting intelligence for China.

According to MND officials, the damage that Tseng and Chen's spying activities might have done to the country has been contained at the lowest possible levels, since most of Taiwan's personnel data and warfare plans that they passed to China were either out of date or no longer pertinent.
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