Top government officials are currently weighing the possibility of replacing National Security Bureau (NSB) Director General Ting Yu-chou (
While the government has not yet made a final decision on the matter, sources said that leaders are more inclined to keep Ting at his position to assist in restructuring the bureau and to help improve the country's national security system.
An official with the NSB, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said replacing Ting may not be a cure-all and that it would not be fair for Ting to take the full blame for both the unapproved departure to China by Pan Hsi-hsien (
Pan, who retired June 1 at the rank of major general and departed for China three days later, was taken into custody by Chinese security agents in Guangdong Province at the end of last month. It is believed that he is still being held by the Chinese authorities.
Pan's plan to go to China and work there was known by a number of his colleagues, who held a farewell party for him before he left the service, internal investigations by the NSB indicated.
Because subordinates concealed Pan's China trip plan from him, General Ting was most likely the only one at the bureau unaware of the trip, and probably did not know of it until it was first exposed by legislators and later extensively reported in the press.
As chief of the country's top intelligence agency, Ting is supposed to know everything relating to the country's national security, but he apparently failed the public's expectations in this regard.
But the matter is complicated by several factors, such as a personal feud between Ting and Pan, factionalism in the bureau and personal problems with Pan.
According to a recently-released report on the incident by the Control Yuan, Pan was forced to take early retirement because of a drunk driving incident at the beginning of this year.
To Pan and other servicemen, early retirement means lost salary and a scaling down of retirement pension packages.
Pan's monthly salary before retirement was about NT$100,000, but his monthly income could be as high as NT$200,000 if allowances and subsidies were taken into account, intelligence sources said.
Pan's early retirement could have cost him as much as NT$1 million, compared to what he would have received had he retired as scheduled at the end of the year. His forced departure had certainly much to do with Ting, who is known for demanding his staff remain "clean," sources said.
Another dimension to the Pan incident is factionalism in the bureau. Pan was widely known to have been brought into the bureau by ex-NSB chief Sung Hsin-lien (
Pan was probably one of the few remaining members of the Sung faction in the bureau when Ting took over the NSB directorship last year from Yin Chung-wen (
Being a member of a smaller faction in the bureau, Pan stayed at the major general rank for the rest of his service while some of his classmates, like Combined Services Force Commander-in-chief Hsieh Chien-tung (
Sources said, however, that Pan's service record was another major element which affected his career.
While a colonel, Pan was already involved in Taiwan's intelligence operations in China, responsible for training agents to operate across the Taiwan Strait, they said.
However, in one incident which became a stain on Pan's record, three agents trained by Pan were recalled just before they were to enter China through a country in the Indo-China region, they said.
The reason for calling off the infiltration mission at the last moment was highly classified, they said, but the incident had strongly affected Pan's further advancement.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most