Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers yesterday claimed that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) had refused to sign a confidentiality agreement on the Indigenous Defense Submarine program and also contravened regulations by talking on her mobile phone when reviewing classified material in closed-door legislative meetings.
Ma has been accused of passing more than 3,000 confidential files and voice recordings on the program to South Korean officials last year, with whistle-blowers alleging that Ma and her aides represented other foreign contractors seeking to muscle in on the project and therefore wanted to block design and construction work by South Korean and European companies.
At a Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee meeting in March 2019, at which Ministry of National Defense officials presented materials on details of the submarine design, construction plans and budget items, 13 of the committee’s 14 lawmakers signed a confidentiality agreement, except Ma, DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“Even when a legislative staffer took it to Ma asking her to sign, she refused to do so,” he said, adding that records from that meeting included a handwritten note saying: “Committee member Ma Wen-chun refused to sign” the confidentiality agreement.
During the seven years from commencing the program and reviewing the design blueprints in 2017 to completing the first submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤號) last month, ministry officials had conferred with committee members at three important closed-door meetings, where the legislators were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, Wang said.
Wang said the first meeting was on March 28, 2019, for ministry officials to report on the construction phase of the program, the second on Oct. 16, 2020, to review the budget and a third on Dec. 22, 2021, for a final review and a ministry progress report.
The committee’s regulations state that legislators can peruse confidential material, but should not make notes or take photographs, that legislative staffers should sweep the committee room to guard against the planting of bugs, and that all materials should be returned at end of each session, he said.
“All these are done to keep these materials confidential. It is quite despicable when a legislator leaks these national secrets,” Wang said.
At one of these meetings, Ma was seen talking on a Personal Handy-phone System handset, as Internet-connected smartphones were withheld, he said, adding that a rear admiral asked Ma not to do so, while both DPP and KMT legislators castigated Ma for breaking the regulations and told her to stop using the phone.
Ma used the phone to provide her top aide with information from classified materials on the submarine program, and she made notes about the material and left the committee room several times, DPP Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said.
“Ma’s actions had two main motives; the first was money, as she was representing other contractors looking to take part in the project; the second was to leak the core technology and the contractors undertaking the work, to interfere and stop the submarine program from being completed,” Chuang said. “It is against Taiwan’s national interest and a betrayal of our nation, but sadly the KMT is still fully supporting her, telling people she has done nothing wrong.”
Separately, New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) called on Ma to apologize for “leaking state secrets” to foreign officials and urged the KMT to remove her from the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee and replace her with another legislator.
In response, Ma posted a public message on social media saying: “The so-called confidentiality agreement is just a useless piece of paper. You can sign it, or not sign it, but either way it does not affect a legislator’s rights and responsibilities when attending a closed-door meeting involving classified materials.”
She also denied the accusations made against her, while demanding that the legislature and the ministry investigate who had leaked files and documents pertaining to the submarine program that have now been made public in the media.
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