Democracy groups and other advocates staged a protest in Taipei yesterday, calling for an investigation into power outages and an erroneous broadcast of invasion news tickers to determine if the incidents were the result of staff working on behalf of Beijing.
The event outside the Legislative Yuan was led by the Taiwan Citizen Front and Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy, along with attorney Lai Chung-chiang, convenor of the Economic Democracy Union.
The groups called for probes by the National Security Bureau (NSB) and the Investigation Bureau.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Lo Yi (羅宜) of the Taiwan Citizen Front said that two electricity outages were of the most concern.
A blackout on March 3, which affected significant portions of the nation, was due to human error at Hsinta Power Plant in Kaohsiung, run by the state utility Taiwan Power Co (Taipower). Another occurred at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on March 11 when subcontractors cut power cables.
Another incident of concern occurred on Wednesday, when Chinese Television System (CTS) accidentally ran news tickers announcing a Chinese invasion off the coast of New Taipei City.
Lo and fellow protesters held up signs asking: “Are there Chinese agents working at CTS, Taipower and Taoyuan airport?”
The groups are calling for investigations regarding possible collaboration or links between staff members and China’s government or military.
“The power blackouts took place during the visit by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on March 3, and it forced the cancelation of a live broadcast of his meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文),” Lo said.
The airport blackout occurred during China’s 13th National People’s Congress, where Chinese Premier Lee Keqiang (李克強) in his address said that Taiwan must conform to Beijing’s “one China” principle.
“The CTS incident happened coincidentally with the opening of China’s annual Boao Forum for Asia conference,” Lo said.
The three events “posed threats to our national security, causing anxiety and panic among the public,” he said, adding that they could lead people to “distrust government leadership.”
Lai said that the NSB and the Investigation Bureau should conduct thorough probes into the staff members responsible for the incidents to determine if they conducted sabotage on behalf of China, or if they received any financial reward for doing so.
Lai said that investigations should look into the personal affairs of the individuals to see if they had contact or meetings with Chinese officials in the past five years.
Researcher Hsu Kuan-tze (許冠澤) said that CTS, being governed by the Taiwan Broadcast System, is responsible for alerts regarding natural disasters or military conflicts in the Taiwan Strait, so that people can be instructed about evacuations or mobilization of public relief efforts.
“CTS is an important component of public media networks, and is an essential part of our nation’s infrastructure,” and must be included as important as airports and national agencies in terms of national security, Hsu said, adding that employees of these utilities should undergo the same vetting as military officers when visiting China.
Lai and others at the protest called for amendments or laws to place supervisors and officials of Taiwan Broadcast System, Taipower and Taoyuan airport under national supervision to prevent illicit contracting, espionage or sabotage of government operations.
One option is to amend Article 9 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), Lai said.
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