A new report by Jane's Defence Weekly reveals how Taiwan in recent years has joined hands with the US to spy on China.
But as intelligence sources here point out, such contacts between both sides have long existed, even after the US broke off diplomatic ties with Taiwan over 20 years ago.
In the latest issue of Jane's, Taiwan is said to be operating a major signals intelligence facility in cooperation with the US National Security Agency (NSA) on Taipei's suburban Yangmingshan Mountain.
The facility is identified as a "data processing center," located at a military camp on Yangmingshan, which is quite noticeable with its many giant satellite signal receiving disks.
The data processing center is the Taiwan headquarters of a commercial front for the NSA, the report says. The NSA front in Taiwan operates under the name of a high-tech company.
The Ministry of National Defense declined to comment on the report, saying only that whether or not the information was true would be known sooner or later.
At the data processing center on Yangmingshan, an unidentified number of retired and inactive duty US military personnel work together with Taiwan's military officials, the report says.
The NSA has just completed for the center a five-year upgrade and training program, which features the development, design, implementation and operation of a variety of special-purpose telecom and data processing systems, it says.
The upgrade program is said to incorporate new processing capabilities and provide a 10-fold rise in total system capacity.
The training program reportedly allows the Taiwan military to be less reliant on NSA assistance, which in turn enables the transition of support and development responsibility to Taiwan's military.
A senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there has always been intelligence cooperation between Taiwan and the US despite the severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1979.
"The US has its own reasons for strengthening its intelligence gathering facilities in Taiwan," the official said.
"There is nothing surprising about the development since it falls within what is normally expected. What is really surprising is how the US is able to maintain intelligence links with Taiwan and its archrival China at the same time," he said.
"We know the US has set up intelligence stations in inland China to collect information on countries like Russia. We are not sure what the US has given to China in return for the help," he said.
"We have proof that the US sends, on a regular basis, C-130 transport aircraft into China to deliver supplies to its intelligence stations in the interior. We have seen reports of Chinese fighter planes escorting the C-130s to their destinations," he said.
The intelligence official, however, declined to comment on whether Taiwan also has intelligence links with China as suspected by the US.
According to information obtained by the Taipei Times, Taiwan's intelligence links with China date to the 1960s or earlier, as the two sides sought to subvert each other with secret operations by spies.
At that time, Taiwan's intelligence chiefs would leak to their Chinese counterparts information about where and when certain agents from Taiwan would enter China.
The intentional sacrifice of the agents was justified so that other spies could infiltrate China.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
RSS