The High Court’s Kaohsiung branch on Wednesday last week sentenced a retired air force colonel to 20 years in prison for running espionage activities for China and recruiting active-duty military officers for a spy network in Taiwan.
Although such offenses have been drawing severe penalties in the past few years, last week’s case once again laid bare that the nation is vulnerable and the law has loopholes. It is of paramount importance that military morale and discipline are restored.
The retired colonel, surnamed Liu (劉), in 2013 moved to China for business after retiring from the military. He was paid to infiltrate Taiwan’s military, recruit active-duty personnel and procure intelligence for Beijing, such as details of military planes and ships, prosecutors said.
Chinese security forces have for a long time sought Taiwanese military personnel to access confidential information and to promote Beijing’s “united front” work. The Ministry of National Defense has warned that China targets Taiwanese who have friends or relatives in China, while it also seeks to infiltrate the nation via criminal gangs and the Internet. The National Security Bureau said that recent efforts by Beijing to infiltrate Taiwan have been extended from targeting high-ranking officers to reach out to rank-and-file personnel.
With military morale and discipline down, vulnerabilities in management cannot be ignored. The investigation of Liu’s case showed that he recruited at least six active-duty officers, with most of them accused of leaking intelligence for financial incentives. In this case, a husband, a lieutenant colonel, became a spy to help pay for gambling debts, while his wife, a major, was also paid to steal military intelligence.
Last week, Taoyuan prosecutors detained four active-duty officers and soldiers from the Marine Brigade accused of stealing and selling firearms and advanced military equipment, including a Stinger missile launcher, to an organized crime group.
Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said the ministry would address holes in military discipline and management. The ministry punished the officers in charge, and vowed to improve strategies to prevent espionage and security breaches, including by amending regulations covering background checks of military personnel, identifying high-risk targets, encouraging people to report misconduct, and improving management of military documents and equipment.
Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the National Security Act (國家安全法) to increase penalties for espionage and leaking information by 50 percent to in-active and retired military officers. The legislative action must be accelerated.
Since 2014, military personnel have been tried in civilian courts, with military trials only permitted in times of war. However, this has led to concern that lighter penalties have been handed down in espionage cases, as the sense of national security among civilian judges differs from judges in military courts.
Perhaps military trials should be reinstated during peacetime to boost enforcement of laws against espionage.
In addition to restricting deterrent regulations, authorities should boost the discipline of the military, loyalty to the country, and the awareness and honor to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy. Improving morale is difficult, but it is a fundamental and urgent task.
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) first suggested a mass recall of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, the Taipei Times called the idea “not only absurd, but also deeply undemocratic” (“Lai’s speech and legislative chaos,” Jan. 6, page 8). In a subsequent editorial (“Recall chaos plays into KMT hands,” Jan. 9, page 8), the paper wrote that his suggestion was not a solution, and that if it failed, it would exacerbate the enmity between the parties and lead to a cascade of revenge recalls. The danger came from having the DPP orchestrate a mass recall. As it transpired,
Sitting in their homes typing on their keyboards and posting on Facebook things like, “Taiwan has already lost its democracy,” “The Democratic Progressive Party is a party of green communists,” or “President William Lai [賴清德] is a dictator,” then turning around and heading to the convenience store to buy a tea egg and an iced Americano, casually chatting in a Line group about which news broadcast was more biased this morning — are such people truly clear about the kind of society in which they are living? This is not meant to be sarcasm or criticism, but an exhausted honesty.
Much has been said about the significance of the recall vote, but here is what must be said clearly and without euphemism: This vote is not just about legislative misconduct. It is about defending Taiwan’s sovereignty against a “united front” campaign that has crept into the heart of our legislature. Taiwanese voters on Jan. 13 last year made a complex decision. Many supported William Lai (賴清德) for president to keep Taiwan strong on the world stage. At the same time, some hoped that giving the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) a legislative majority would offer a
RSS