The High Court on Thursday sentenced a retired army lieutenant colonel surnamed Lan (藍) to two years and three months in jail for supplying China with the names and activities of personnel at intelligence agencies.
The verdict reversed an earlier ruling of a suspended sentence.
Lan, 60, was convicted of contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法).
In May, the Pingtung District Court found Lan guilty, handing him a term of two years and six months, but suspended the sentence.
The Pingtung court said that Lan’s spying activities took place in 2005 and 2006, adding that his activities “did not cause real damage to Taiwan’s national security.”
The High Court ruled that “the penalty was too lenient and has no deterrent effect,” adding that “the leaked intelligence materials were highly sensitive and resulted in serious harm to Taiwan’s national security.”
His sentence includes a mandatory two-year prison term, while the further three month sscan be commuted to a fine.
Lan served in the Republic of China Army Logistics Command and held positions at the Ministry of National Defense before teaching at several military-affiliated universities.
He retired in 1996.
Investigators said that Lan in 2004 went to China to work for a Taiwanese business, with stints in Shanghai, Fuzhou, Shenzhen and Nanning.
Lan befriended Chinese government officials, including two men from intelligence agencies surnamed Li (李) and Huang (黃), the investigators said.
Li and Huang plied Lan with money and arranged sexual services in exchange for espionage work, the investigators said.
Lan returned to Taiwan for several months in 2005 and 2006, and obtained highly sensitive materials, including information on four officers at the National Security Bureau and the Military Intelligence Bureau: their ranks, work units, details of office and field activities, as well as their education and training background, the investigators said.
He also attempted to recruit military officers to spy for China, they said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods