China has arrested nearly a dozen military officers -- including at least four generals -- on charges of spying for Taiwan, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The officers are accused of selling secrets on China's deployment of fighter aircraft and air defenses, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported. It said they were arrested in February and last month.
Most of the those arrested reportedly worked in the Air Force Command Academy, the highest training institute for the air force of the PLA, the Post said.
They were believed to have supplied information on deployment of China's advanced, Russian-designed Su-27 fighter planes, the report said. It said one suspect was the leading officer at the academy and was accused of getting at least US$120,000 from Taiwan.
The Hong Kong newspaper Sing Pao identified two of those arrested as Major General Liu Guang-zhi (
The identities of the others weren't reported.
The Ministry of National Defense in Taipei had no immediate comment on the reports.
"We are still collecting information to understand the case," a ministry spokesman said.
An officer with the ministry's Military Intelligence Bureau said the bureau was perusing the reports and has not yet worked out why the reports claim that senior People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers supposedly detained by Beijing were spying for Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Chen Ming-tong (
Noting that intelligence work is basically strategic warfare, Chen said that media reports on the issue are usually not factual.
"We'll keep a close watch on whether the report has any political implications," Chen said, adding that intelligence warfare often involves using various ploys and misinformation to divide or sow seeds of discord in the enemy camp.
China in February announced the arrests of several Taiwanese businessmen in two southern provinces, saying they had spied on Chinese military targets for Taiwan.
A retired PLA major general and a senior colonel were reportedly executed in 1999 for selling military secrets to Taiwan.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS