The Ministry of Justice is to hold a meeting today with representatives of tech firms at the Hsinchu Science Park to counteract Beijing’s efforts to recruit industrial spies and steal technological know-how.
Chinese companies have long targeted Taiwanese tech talent to work in China, but in recent years have arranged for recruits to stay in Taiwan under the pretext of doing research and development, but are actually working as industrial spies, Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said during a meeting with reporters on Wednesday.
“Chinese companies offer high salaries through headhunting agencies to entice Taiwanese working in high tech to work as corporate spies, resulting in financial losses for many Taiwanese enterprises and affecting the nation’s economic competitiveness,” he said.
Photo: Wu Cheng-fong, Taipei Times
Prosecutor Huang Chih-chung (黃致中) cited as an example the case of a former engineer at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, who was indicted in 2018 for theft of trade secrets.
The engineer, surnamed Wu (吳), copied trade secrets linked to TSMC’s 28-nanometer process technology with the intention of taking the data with him to China when he took a new job at CSMC Technologies Corp.
Wu, who was charged with breach of trust and contravening the Trade Secrets Act (營業秘密法), was in February found guilty and handed an 18-month suspended sentence by the Hsinchu District Court.
“China’s covert plans to steal trade secrets and commercial proprietary information do not just target Taiwan, but can be found in many nations around the world,” Huang said.
Prosecutors, along with teams from the justice ministry and investigation agencies, are to convene a talk today with high-tech firms at the Hsinchu Science Park, the main information technology cluster in northern Taiwan, the ministry said.
Meetings with firms at other science parks in central and southern Taiwan are to be held in the coming weeks, it added.
Asked for a comment, the Hsinchu Science Park Administration yesterday said that the forum is a regular activity.
About 200 companies based in the park, including TSMC and MediaTek Inc, have applied to participate in the forum, it said.
In addition to the minister of justice, Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office Chief Prosecutor Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) is to join the forum and provide tips on how to protect corporate trade secrets from theft, it added.
Meanwhile, lawmakers also urged the government to boost information security protection measures.
Military personnel and personnel privy to state secrets should have a better sense of national security, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said.
Infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not succeed unless people from the inside cooperate with it, Lo said.
In some cases, money and romance were used to lure people to leak confidential information, and authorities should learn from past cases to anticipate new ploys employed by the CCP, he said.
DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) cited as an example the National Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology’s solicitation of tenders for network-
attachment storage services listing connectivity with China’s Baidu Cloud cloud-based storage service as a prerequisite.
This reflects a sore lack of awareness of Chinese infiltration that pervades government agencies, even one tasked with developing weapons, Wang said.
Information security is not a show you put on for others, he said, urging the institute to check for any information security loopholes by working with the National Security Bureau, the military’s General Staff for Communication, Electronics and Information, and the Executive Yuan’s National Information and Communication Security Taskforce.
Additional reporting by Lisa Wang and Wu Su-wei
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS