Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers yesterday claimed that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) had refused to sign a confidentiality agreement on the Indigenous Defense Submarine program and also contravened regulations by talking on her mobile phone when reviewing classified material in closed-door legislative meetings.
Ma has been accused of passing more than 3,000 confidential files and voice recordings on the program to South Korean officials last year, with whistle-blowers alleging that Ma and her aides represented other foreign contractors seeking to muscle in on the project and therefore wanted to block design and construction work by South Korean and European companies.
At a Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee meeting in March 2019, at which Ministry of National Defense officials presented materials on details of the submarine design, construction plans and budget items, 13 of the committee’s 14 lawmakers signed a confidentiality agreement, except Ma, DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“Even when a legislative staffer took it to Ma asking her to sign, she refused to do so,” he said, adding that records from that meeting included a handwritten note saying: “Committee member Ma Wen-chun refused to sign” the confidentiality agreement.
During the seven years from commencing the program and reviewing the design blueprints in 2017 to completing the first submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤號) last month, ministry officials had conferred with committee members at three important closed-door meetings, where the legislators were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, Wang said.
Wang said the first meeting was on March 28, 2019, for ministry officials to report on the construction phase of the program, the second on Oct. 16, 2020, to review the budget and a third on Dec. 22, 2021, for a final review and a ministry progress report.
The committee’s regulations state that legislators can peruse confidential material, but should not make notes or take photographs, that legislative staffers should sweep the committee room to guard against the planting of bugs, and that all materials should be returned at end of each session, he said.
“All these are done to keep these materials confidential. It is quite despicable when a legislator leaks these national secrets,” Wang said.
At one of these meetings, Ma was seen talking on a Personal Handy-phone System handset, as Internet-connected smartphones were withheld, he said, adding that a rear admiral asked Ma not to do so, while both DPP and KMT legislators castigated Ma for breaking the regulations and told her to stop using the phone.
Ma used the phone to provide her top aide with information from classified materials on the submarine program, and she made notes about the material and left the committee room several times, DPP Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said.
“Ma’s actions had two main motives; the first was money, as she was representing other contractors looking to take part in the project; the second was to leak the core technology and the contractors undertaking the work, to interfere and stop the submarine program from being completed,” Chuang said. “It is against Taiwan’s national interest and a betrayal of our nation, but sadly the KMT is still fully supporting her, telling people she has done nothing wrong.”
Separately, New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) called on Ma to apologize for “leaking state secrets” to foreign officials and urged the KMT to remove her from the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee and replace her with another legislator.
In response, Ma posted a public message on social media saying: “The so-called confidentiality agreement is just a useless piece of paper. You can sign it, or not sign it, but either way it does not affect a legislator’s rights and responsibilities when attending a closed-door meeting involving classified materials.”
She also denied the accusations made against her, while demanding that the legislature and the ministry investigate who had leaked files and documents pertaining to the submarine program that have now been made public in the media.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
RSS