New Taipei City prosecutors have charged a retired air force commander with helping China infiltrate Taiwan’s military and recruit officers in breach of the National Security Act (國家安全法).
After retiring from the air force in 2004, former wing commander Tu Yung-hsin (杜永心), 67, went to work in China, the prosecutors said on Monday.
Tu attempted to recruit Taiwanese military officers to work for China and collaborate with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the event of a war, they said.
Shortly after Tu went to China, he was approached by a man known as “Mr A,” a section chief at the PLA’s General Political Department, prosecutors said, adding that the agency became the Political Work Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission after major restructuring in 2016.
Tu allegedly agreed to work for Mr A, after being offered money and gifts, and promised to recruit officers and set up a clandestine network within the military.
After returning to Taiwan, Tu focused on recruiting his former colleagues and acquaintances, one of whom was an army lieutenant colonel surnamed Tsai (蔡), prosecutors said.
Tu allegedly tried to recruit Tsai in 2011, when he was the commander of a combined arms battalion, by offering him money, expensive wine and tea, and all-expense-paid trips to China and Malaysia.
Tsai told investigators that Tu wanted him to go on the trips to meet high-ranking Chinese officials, but he declined.
Tu allegedly said the Chinese Ministry of State Security was focused on penetrating Taiwan’s military and political structures, and that the recruited officers would not need to conduct espionage work, but would be “moles” who would rise in rank and be activated when needed.
Tsai said that Tu wanted him to switch allegiance to the People’s Republic of China, and asked to film him saying: “In the future, Taiwan will unify with China. If war breaks out between the two sides, I will not fight, and will cooperate with the Chinese motherland.”
Tsai secretly recorded his conversations with Tu and kept the money and gifts given to him, which he handed over as evidence when prosecutors and the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau began to investigate the case in September.
Tu has denied he was working for China, saying that he was just boasting when socializing with Tsai.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,