The French defense ministry on Wednesday said it was partially declassifying 46 documents relating to the controversial sale of six French Lafayette warships to Taiwan in 1991.
The documents concern the mission of Thierry Imbot, a French intelligence agent who was charged following the warships deal, which allegedly saw millions of dollars handed out as commissions to middlemen and politicians.
Imbot died in suspicious circumstances in 2000, having told his father -- a former intelligence chief -- that large amounts of money had been spent on commissions.
He died after falling from the fourth floor of his building, which the authorities said at the time was accidental. However his father has said that his body landed too far from the building for this to be the case.
The ministry said the 46 documents had been sent to Renaud van Ruymbeke and Dominique de Talance, the magistrates investigating the corruption allegations.
Earlier this month, Switzerland said it would transfer documents relating to the sale to France, after a court rejected an appeal by Taiwanese businessman Andrew Wang (
Responding to a request by the two French judges, the Federal Tribunal -- Switzerland's highest court -- decided there was sufficient evidence to implicate Wang in the affair and overruled his bid to keep the bank documents under wraps.
The French judicial probe was opened in 2001 after claims that a large part of the US$2.8 billion paid by Taiwan for the six frigates in 1991 went on commissions to middlemen, politicians and military officers in Taiwan, China and France.
The investigation had run into serious difficulties because of decisions by successive French governments to withhold documents on grounds of official secrecy.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
RSS