Taiwan's diplomatic relations and information-gathering efforts in China and overseas might be damaged by the disclosure of classified data as part of media reports that the National Security Bureau (NSB) set up secret slush funds, officials said yesterday.
"The disclosure may endanger the safety of our intelligence agents," said Chang Jung-feng (張榮豐), Deputy Secretary General of the National Security Council, during the intermission of a legislative committee meeting yesterday.
"Our crisis-management plan focuses on the protection of our international cooperation network, as well as ensuring the safety of our intelligence agents," Chang added.
The National Security Council on Wednesday decided to establish a crisis-management task force in the wake of the media's disclosure of leaked NSB classified documents regarding the use of NSB slush funds.
The reports said that two NSB funds, which totalled NT$3.5 billion, was authorized by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to finance Taiwan's espionage activities across the Strait and to serve as Taiwan's funding mechanism in its diplomatic rivalry with Beijing.
Related reports in Next magazine went so far as to detail the total cost of each covert-funding operation, as well as the names of trading companies in whose accounts the funds for each operation was held.
Taiwan's former ambassador to South Africa Loh I-cheng (陸以正) also admitted on Wednesday that Lee agreed in 1994 to donate US$10 million to South Africa's heavily indebted African National Congress (ANC), in a futile effort to sustain Taipei-Pretoria ties.
Loh also said he had no idea why the leaked NSB document, as reported by the China Times on Wednesday, said the donated amount was NT$11 million.
The Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Kao (
"What should have been kept confidential was disclosed. This is indicative of our inability to keep things secret, and how would others dare to deal with us after this?" Kao said during the intermission of a legislative committee meeting.
"Other countries might worry that, perhaps, their cases could be disclosed here as well," the scholar-turned-vice-foreign-minister added.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
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