Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to toughen penalties for military officials found guilty of treason.
Current punishments are too lenient and do not serve as a deterrent, legislators told a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee yesterday, citing the case of former army colonel Hsiang Te-en (向德恩).
Hsiang was found guilty of accepting bribes and signing a letter of surrender swearing allegiance to the People’s Republic of China as his “motherland.” The Kaohsiung District Court in February last year sentenced him to seven-and-a-half years in prison and ordered him to pay NT$560,000, the equivalent of what he received in bribes.
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters
DPP legislators Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), Michelle Lin (林楚茵) and Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) proposed increasing the sentences for military officials found guilty of treason from the current one to seven years in prison to three to 10 years.
In Hsiang’s case, the Ministry of National Defense initially suggested that he be tried for contravening Articles 17 and 19 of the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法), the legislators said.
“However, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office, which handled the case, only tried Hsiang for the crime of corruption, for which there was clear evidence,” they said.
“China’s efforts to infiltrate Taiwan are becoming an increasingly serious problem, but espionage cases are tried too leniently, and that poses a national security risk,” they added.
Although Hsiang’s willingness to surrender to China would affect troop morale, current laws do not stipulate penalties for such acts committed during peacetime, the legislators said.
“If active-duty military personnel can freely commit such violations of their sworn loyalty to the nation, it would be difficult to prevent defection and enemy infiltration in wartime,” the legislators said.
Penalties for crimes related to aiding an enemy in the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces should be revised with reference to provisions for the crime of foreign aggression in the Criminal Code, the legislators said.
Specifically, stricter penalties should be implemented for those who “prepare or conspire to deliver military facilities or items to the enemy, engage in espionage activities for the enemy, or assist the enemy’s spies to engage in such activities,” the legislators said.
The proposed amendment would also increase prison terms to up to seven years for those who intend to destroy military facilities and items, damage or block water and land routes, give the enemy a military advantage, harm Taiwan or its allies through actions that would put their respective militaries at a disadvantage, or surrender to the enemy, the legislators said.
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS