The Ministry of National Defense yesterday denied reports that military officers had sold military secrets to China, including classified information on US military equipment.
“The reports are untrue,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry acknowledged discovering 14 Chinese espionage cases involving Taiwanese military personnel over the past three years, but it said 12 were uncovered while still at an early stage.
The cases did not involve any leaks of classified information on military equipment, it said.
The ministry was responding to a report in Defense News, which said that “as relations improve between Beijing and Taipei, military morale still continues to fall as fewer Taiwan military officers see a future in an ever-shrinking armed forces.”
“Many are beginning to cash in on their intimate knowledge of military secrets, including classified information on US military equipment,” the report said.
Over the past few years, Taiwanese military officers have sold Beijing information on the E-2K early warning aircraft, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and PAC-2 anti-ballistic missile systems, and others, the report said.
The report has been cited by Taiwanese media over the past two days, including in the Chinese-language Apple Daily, which said in its editorial yesterday that some of the military officers involved in spying for China were as senior as lieutenant generals or even generals.
The ministry denied the report, without elaborating.
Detailing Beijing’s efforts to gain access to secrets, the ministry said China has adopted two approaches to get Taiwanese military officers to spy for it in recent years.
One is to use Taiwanese businessmen operating in China as middlemen to contact potential candidates to spy for Beijing, it said.
The other is to take advantage of families of active or retired military officers by giving them gifts and treating them to overseas trips, to develop a close relationship with them and then ask them for military information.
The ministry said that it would continue with its efforts to educate military personnel on taking precautions against Beijing’s overtures to safeguard national security.
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