The government should promulgate amendments to the National Security Act (國家安全法) that were passed last year to deal with the growing issue of Chinese espionage, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP) said yesterday.
“Chinese espionage is rampant in Taiwan, because people here are confused about their national identity and the punishments for spying are very lenient,” TSP Chairman Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥) said.
The Republic of China political system does not recognize the People’s Republic of China as a foreign country, or as an enemy, which means the judicial system cannot treat Chinese espionage as foreign aggression, Wang said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The average sentence for espionage in Taiwan is only 18 months, compared with 19 years in some democratic countries, he said, adding that from 2014 to this year, the average prison term for espionage in Taiwan was about one year.
Espionage cases have been tried under the Trade Secrets Act (營業秘密法) the Criminal Code and past versions of the National Security Act, but the law must adapt to the new means and technology employed by China in its effort to infiltrate Taiwan, Wang said.
The TSP has been pushing a draft “agents of foreign powers act,” but it has been stalled at the Legislative Yuan for four years, he said.
“The administration appears conservative and shrinking in the face of Chinese aggression and infiltration. However, with public support, the TSP will continue to push legislation to tackle Chinese spies,” he said.
Youth Jurist Association of Taiwan director and lawyer Yang Chung-ting (楊仲庭) compared the disproportionately low sentences in espionage cases to a corruption case in which a military official in Kinmen County was sentenced to 12 years in prison for embezzling NT$7,990 of public funds.
The leniency shown in spy cases demonstrates a lack of awareness regarding national security threats among judges, he said.
Currently, those indicted for spying for China can often only be charged with contravening Article 2 of the National Security Act, which stipulates penalties for “initiating, funding, hosting, manipulating, directing or developing an organization,” he said.
However, it is hard to convict someone of such a crime in times of peace, as it is difficult to prove that a person is acting under the command of the Chinese Communist Party, he said.
Lin Yi-ping (林意評), chairman of the TSP’s Yilan County chapter, said that one challenge with current and retired Taiwanese military personnel who spy for China is that judges see expressions of support for Taiwan’s unification with China as expressions of free speech.
“However, China uses Taiwan’s freedom of speech to infringe on its national security,” he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS