A former Taiwanese spy has rebutted allegations that she had a personal relationship with a veteran US State Department officer in order to gather intelligence for Taiwan, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Isabelle Cheng (程念慈), a former agent in Washington for the National Security Bureau, burst into tears when she discussed the alleged links, which led to the arrest of Donald Keyser in September 2004, the Chinese-language China Times reported.
Keyser, a US State Department veteran with 30 years service, was sentenced to one year in jail in January on charges of concealing his personal relationship with Cheng and of unauthorized possession of classified documents.
The China Times quoted Cheng, 37, as saying in an interview in Taipei that misleading news reports about the spy incident unfairly caused damage to Keyser and herself.
"He [Keyser] was such a patriotic person, and now he's even stripped of his pension," she was quoted as saying in her first known interview with the media since the case came to light.
Cheng said that the bureau did not use sex in order to help gather classified information, the report said.
Cheng resigned from the National Security Bureau after testifying in the case in Washington. The newspaper said she is studying for her doctorate in an unnamed foreign country.
US court documents revealed an intensely personal relationship between the two. Keyser was said to have frequently expressed his infatuation with Cheng, and the two often discussed international relations.
Keyser denied engaging in sexual contact with Cheng, even though US federal agents said they witnessed the pair in compromising positions.
Court documents also showed that Taiwanese intelligence considered its contact with Keyser valuable, and they believed he could provide insight into the sensitive relations between China, Taiwan and the US.
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station
ALL-IN-ONE: A company in Tainan and another in New Taipei City offer tours to China during which Taiwanese can apply for a Chinese ID card, the source said The National Immigration Agency and national security authorities have identified at least five companies that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese identification cards while traveling in China, a source said yesterday. The issue has garnered attention in the past few months after YouTuber “Pa Chiung” (八炯) said that there are companies in Taiwan that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese documents. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) last week said that three to five public relations firms in southern and northern Taiwan have allegedly assisted Taiwanese in applying for Chinese ID cards and were under investigation for potential contraventions of the Act Governing
‘INVESTMENT’: Rubio and Arevalo said they discussed the value of democracy, and Rubio thanked the president for Guatemala’s strong diplomatic relationship with Taiwan Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Guatemala City on Wednesday where they signed a deal for Guatemala to accept migrants deported from the US, while Rubio commended Guatemala for its support for Taiwan and said the US would do all it can to facilitate greater Taiwanese investment in Guatemala. Under the migrant agreement announced by Arevalo, the deportees would be returned to their home countries at US expense. It is the second deportation deal that Rubio has reached during a Central America trip that has been focused mainly on immigration. Arevalo said his
‘SOVEREIGN AI’: As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for having computing power of 103 petaflops. The governments wants to achieve 1,200 by 2029 The government would intensify efforts to bolster its “Sovereign Artificial Intelligence [AI]” program by setting a goal of elevating the nation’s collective computing power in the public and private sectors to 1,200 peta floating points per second (petaflops) by 2029, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The goal was set to fulfill President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision of turning Taiwan into an “AI island.” Sovereign AI refers to a nation’s capabilities to produce AI using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks. One petaflop allows 1 trillion calculations per second. As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for