Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) yesterday said that Taiwan-related information obtained by the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks was not necessarily true.
The ministry has kept track of the classified documents unveiled by the Web site and has confirmed that none of them were leaked from Taiwan, Kao said during a National Defense Committee hearing in the legislature.
He said a special task force headed by Deputy Minister of National Defense Andrew Yang (楊念祖) would follow future leaks by the Web site and analyze and verify any details related to Taiwan.
“I have ordered ... Yang to lead a special group to verify the cables” once they are released by WikiLeaks, Kao said.
“Not all of them are true,” he said, adding that the ministry had been in close contact with the US over the matter.
WikiLeaks announced on its Web site that over the next few months it would release in stages 251,287 cables originating from 274 US embassies from Dec. 28, 1966, to Feb. 28 this year.
Among them are 3,456 cables sent between the US State Department and the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the US representative office in Taiwan.
Taiwan was also mentioned in some of the documents that have already been released.
One of the documents showed that China opposed the US sale of Black Hawk helicopters and F-16C/D fighter aircraft to Taiwan and also opposed Taiwan’s sale or rent of AH-1W SuperCobra helicopters to Turkey.
Commenting on the information, Kao said that although Beijing has openly opposed US arms sales to Taiwan, the government was confident it could still procure weapons from the US.
As to the helicopter deal with Turkey, the minister said this was the first time he had heard of the matter.
Even if the US requested Taiwan to sell or rent AH-1W helicopters to Turkey, the government would not have agreed because the helicopters were needed to meet Taiwan’s own defense requirements, Kao said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) on Tuesday warned that the thousands of classified documents illicitly obtained from the US government had the potential to jeopardize Taiwan-US relations if they were made public.
None of the Taiwan-related confidential documents have been published so far, but their release “could cause misunderstandings and affect Taiwan-US relations,” Lin said.
He urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Council to immediately contact the US and take precautions to minimize the potential damage.
Lin said the number of documents relating to the AIT was the ninth-highest among those from the US agencies that have been hacked by WikiLeaks.
There are more AIT-related documents than those from the US embassies in Russia, China and Israel, he said.
The Web site said 1,425 of the AIT documents were listed as “Confidential” and 136 listed as “Secret.”
Meanwhile, AIT spokesman Chris Kavanaugh said “the US government condemns the unauthorized disclosure of classified information” and that the AIT would have no further comment.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AFP
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