Charged with leaking state secrets, former Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) yesterday appeared at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office without having received a notice of subpoena from the prosecutors.
“I am here to bring the truth to light,” he said upon his arrival at 10:30am. “All the rumors [alleging] that I have leaked state secrets [to China], divulged where [Taiwan’s] bottom lines were during [cross-strait] negotiations, and given documents classified as secrets to [Chinese officials] are absolutely not true.”
Chang was Taiwan’s second-highest ranked negotiator with China, and concurrently served as vice chairman and secretary-general of the Straits Exchange Foundation, before the Executive Yuan announced on Aug. 16 that he resigned from his posts.
Photo: EPA
Following a string of allegations, mostly made by unnamed sources in media reports after Chang said in a statement on Aug. 17 that he was forced to resign, the prosecutors’ office accepted a request by the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau on Friday last week to look into the charges laid against him.
In front of cameras, Chang yesterday remained tight-lipped over what he said were possible issues he has attended to that led to the accusations, saying that he could not tell the public what he had told the prosecutors because they were state secrets.
Asked whether the government’s failed attempts to schedule a meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had anything to do with his downfall, Chang said he he was not aware of that, but might have “offended someone” when he handled the issue.
“As far as whom I might have offended, the answer is obvious,” Chang said.
A report carried in the Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper yesterday said that Chang has attributed his ouster to his role in handling the proposed Ma-Xi meeting, based on a handwritten note that Chang held at a press conference on Thursday last week, which was photographed by the newspaper’s photojournalists.
Chang did not read that part of the note at the press conference where he accused Ma of being “hijacked” by a handful of people and being deceived into believing the allegations against him. He also refrained from describing what the issues involved could be at the conference.
Chang advised civil servants to take “necessary precautions” to avoid “ending up like him.”
Chang also offered an apology to civil servants, saying that he felt sadness and regret over the repercussions following what happened to him over the previous week.
“It has sparked fear among civil servants. Everyone is now anxious and cannot relax at their jobs,” he said while leaving the prosecutors’ office after being questioned.
Civil servants could be investigated under the suspicion of leaking secrets if they follow orders from their superiors in handling external negotiations when the orders are not written in a signed and sealed government document, Chang said.
Chang said that civil servants had better not deviate from scripted remarks written on a signed and sealed government document when they engage in negotiations with foreign powers, that they must have government documents securely delivered to their negotiation partners via DHL or other logistics services, such as post offices, instead of personally handing documents to their counterparts, and they must record any telephone calls they make.
“[Doing so] is to avoid facing trials for leaking secrets,” Chang said.
After Chang’s interrogation, Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Huang Mou-hsin (黃謀信) said later yesterday that the office has listed him as a defendant and restricted him to his place of residence.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS