Plans are under way to strengthen legal statutes and upgrade measures related to national security, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said.
President William Lai (賴清德) pointed out security needs and outlined priorities during his first high-level national security meeting on Friday, stressing the need for reform and improvement in nationwide protective networks, Wu said.
As parties had proposed more than 10 legislation packages and amendments to the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), the National Security Act (國家安全法), the Cyber Security Management Act (資通安全管理法) and laws governing cross-strait relations and statutes during the last legislative session, now is the time for the blue and green political camps to deliberate on national security details, “because Taiwan’s national security should not be divided by affiliations,” Wu said.
Photo: Taipei Times
The meeting on Friday reached an agreement on three main items: establishing a security network covering the whole nation, enhancing density of coverage for all jurisdictions and more severe punishments for those who contravene security laws.
DPP Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) said China has used many tactics to infiltrate Taiwan, and conduct espionage and other covert operations, but the situation has become more complicated, as it is now more difficult to track Chinese money flow channels due to China-controlled supply chains in high-tech and other industrial sectors.
“So we must reassess all the law statutes governing cybersecurity and data protection, and patch up the loopholes,” she said.
DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said the advancement of news technologies has linked the world into vast digital networks, so it is difficult to monitor international money flow.
“It is forbidden by law to accept funds coming from the Chinese Communist Party, or Chinese military sources or leadership. However, when those are scattered as donations on YouTube, we have no way to check and we have no control over it,” Wang said.
DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) said the changes to the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法) are needed to prevent that flow of money and collaboration with China, but getting the agreement of opposition parties would be hard.
“We have proposed to amend the offenses against the nation’s external security, because too many people in Taiwan are doing business, taking visits and interacting with people in China. Expanding the definition is needed to prosecute those who have betrayed or sold out Taiwan,” he said, expressing concern over the issue of lawmakers visiting China.
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