Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators have proposed an amendment to strip benefits from military retirees who have received suspended sentences for espionage-related offenses.
China frequently uses retired military officers to “build bridges” with active-duty military personnel in Taiwan, but under the law only those who have received sentences for contraventions stipulated in the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法) or the National Security Act (國家安全法) would lose their retirement benefits, DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) said.
The 14 retirees who have been sentenced for espionage-related offenses under those laws have been ordered to repay about NT$40 million (US$1.23 million) worth of benefits, but 85 percent of that remains outstanding, DPP Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) said, adding that the convicted retirees could also avoid paying by applying for administrative relief.
Photo: Lin Liang-sheng, Taipei Times
Shen and Lin, along with DPP legislators Wu Li-hua (伍麗華), Lin Yi-chin (林宜瑾) and Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘), last week submitted a draft amendment for the Act of Military Service for Officers and Non-commissioned Officers of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍軍官士官服役條例) to the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
The service regulations for officers and non-commissioned officers of the army, navy and air force stipulate that those who commit acts that facilitate civil strife or foreign invasion, or that endanger national security through the sharing of national secrets with a foreign power and are sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment, must lose their retirement benefits.
The proposed amendment adds that in cases where the prosecutor does not pursue a case or defers prosecution, or where a sentence has not yet been determined, the retiree would also lose their benefits.
Separately, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers last week submitted proposed amendments to national defense-related laws to the committee for review.
KMT Legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) proposed amending Article 5 of the Pay Act of the Armed Forces (軍人待遇條例) to add a “combat bonus” for officers and soldiers serving in combat and combat support units to increase recruitment incentives.
Hsu also proposed amending the Armed Forces Punishment Act (陸海空軍懲罰法) to remove forms of corporal punishment, which she said had no educational benefit for soldiers and would deter recruitment.
KMT Legislator-at-large Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) proposed an amendment to Article 34 of the Military Trial Act (軍事審判法) to stipulate that cases of military personnel involving the Criminal Code be handled by military trial.
The law was amended following former army corporal Hung Chung-chiu’s (洪仲丘) death in 2013 to have cases handled by the civilian criminal court system, which led to criticism that it would harm military interests and national security.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has