US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Helvey on Thursday once again called into question Taiwan’s ability to protect sensitive technologies from Chinese spies, should the US agree to transfer them to Taiwan, at a symposium held by the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington.
The one-day event, titled “Upgrading US-Taiwan relations for the 21st century,” marked the institute’s first annual symposium.
Helvey posited the question whether Taiwanese businesspeople with obvious commercial benefits in China would be involved in Taiwan’s autonomous national defense projects.
US-Taiwan relations have been stiff since the Monterey Talks in Hawaii last month, at which both sides devoted significant time to the case of Hsieh Chia-kang (謝嘉康).
Hsieh, a former missile command commander, is still under investigation after reports in May said he had been turned by Chinese covert operatives.
Hsieh was accused of being treated to luxuries by Chinese intelligence operatives during trips abroad. As a former commander of the Air Defense Missile Command, Hsieh was fully briefed on deployments of all of the nation’s missiles, including the Patriot III, the Tien Kung III and the Hsiung Feng 2E cruise missile.
Helvey’s talk on Thursday was similar to his talk at the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference in October last year, a sign that the US doubts Taiwan’s capacity to protect military secrets as strongly under US President Donald Trump’s administration as it did under former US president Barack Obama.
While President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) government favors self-manufactured defense systems and hopes the US can help the nation develop diesel submarines and trainer jets, Helvey said the US did not have much technology it could share to help Taiwan develop its national defense industry.
Transfer of sensitive technologies must conform to US standards and before Taiwanese and US private enterprises could sign partnership deals, new regulations must be introduced to prevent the inappropriate transfer of data and knowledge, he said.
Beijing showed no signs of abandoning the idea to occupy Taiwan by force, Helvey added.
He said that Taiwan’s defense transformation should focus on “prioritizing defense resourcing; prioritizing homeland defense; developing a capable, effective force; and investing in asymmetric capabilities.”
A key topic at the symposium was the possibility of the US stationing nuclear weapons in Taiwan, South Korea or Japan to force China to cooperate on North Korea.
Former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia Abraham Denmark rejected the idea of dragging Taiwan into the North Korean issue and said that such a strategy would not help add pressure on China.
Denmark recommended that the US’ focus should instead be on bolstering US-Taiwan defense ties and supporting Taiwan’s own defense capabilities, adding that it did not include providing the country with nuclear weapons.
Former assistant US secretary of defense, Asian and Pacific security affairs Wallace Gregson, who did not comment on nuclear weapons, was in favor of the US positioning a missile defense system in Taiwan should North Korea’s continued missile tests threaten the nation.
Talk in certain South Korean media about a redeployment of US nuclear weapons to Japan and South Korea was indicative of the region’s lack of trust in the US’ nuclear umbrella — the guarantee that the US will protect non-nuclear allied states, Denmark said.
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