The Taiwanese-American charged by the US with providing China with secret information on US arms sales to Taiwan, Kuo Tai-sheng (郭台生), was denied bail and ordered to remain in custody by a federal court in a Virginia suburb of Washington on Friday.
Kuo was arrested on Monday by FBI agents along with a US Defense Department weapons analyst and a Chinese-born woman as part of an alleged two-year long effort to transfer to China detailed information on secret and sensitive US military sales to Taiwan.
Finding that there was "no clear and convincing evidence" that Kuo's communications could be monitored 24 hours a day to prevent him from transmitting US military secrets that were "in his head" to foreign countries, Magistrate Judge Anderson in the US Eastern District of Virginia in Arlington District Court denied Kuo bail and ordered him to remain in custody, at least for the time being.
Kuo's appearance came a day after US defense official Gregg Bergersen appeared in the same courtroom and was ordered to be released from custody after posting bail of US$100,000. During his bail Bergersen will be required to wear an ankle bracelet electronic monitoring device to prevent him from fleeing.
Anderson rejected arguments from Kuo's attorney, Alex Bourelly, that Kuo should be freed since there was no threat that he would flee. As evidence, he said that Kuo's bank account contains only US$150.
To counter that, a US Justice Department prosecutor said that, as of last March, Kuo's bank account contained US$150,000, money which he could us to flee to another country.
The prosecution argued that "Kuo still has national defense information in his head that could be communicated to" foreign countries.
He said that this "put the US military in jeopardy and other forces that communicate with the US military."
While Bourelly argued that Kuo has "no information in his head that could be used" against the US and that Kuo poses a "de minimus risk" against the US, the judge rejected his arguments.
Kuo waived his right to further preliminary hearings and it was not clear what the next step would be. To be tried, Kuo must be indicted by a grand jury, but neither the prosecution nor the defense attorneys would speculate on what the next steps in the case may be.
The third defendant in the case, a Chinese woman Kang Yuxin (康玉新), who is alleged to have been the intermediary between Kuo and a Chinese official known only as "PRC official A," is believed to still be in the New Orleans area and was expected to be transferred to the Washington area for prosecution.
Kuo and Kang are named in one case in which both are charged with a conspiracy to deliver material defense information to a foreign government, charges that have maximum life imprisonment terms.
Bergersen is named in a separate case and is charged with providing US military secrets to a person unauthorized to receive it, a charge that carries only a 10 year maximum prison term.
Bergersen, Kuo and Kang were arrested on Monday and charged in an alleged scheme that began in January 2006 to reveal US secrets on weapons sales to Taiwan and communicate them to China.
One target of their activities, an FBI affidavit said, were essential information and communications technology for an air defense program started by Taiwan in 2003 called the Po Sheng, or "Broad Victory."
The technology, which the US agreed to share with Taiwan, involved so-called C4ISR, which is crucial to any modern military operation.
Another target was the latest annual plans by the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods