Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP) members on Monday called on the legislature to pass Taiwan’s own “foreign influence transparency act” to mete out more severe punishment for legislators and officials found to have leaked national security secrets, amid accusations that some lawmakers have passed on classified material.
“Taiwan lacks the legal framework to fight against agents acting on China’s behalf, infiltrating the legislature and ministries. Taiwanese also lack the mindset that China is an enemy state seeking to wage war against them, and they must have the will to take up weapons to fight,” TSP Chairman Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥) told a news conference in Taipei.
Over the past few weeks, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) has faced accusations over allegedly cutting budget items to block Taiwan’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program and other arms procurement plans.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chao Tian-lin (趙天麟) has also encountered accusations this week of allegedly passing on national secrets to a Chinese woman with whom he had an affair.
Wang told a news conference that Ma last week alone introduced more than 210 motions to freeze government funds intended for important military programs and US weapons procurement.
“In Taiwan, we have no law statutes to stop politicians like her,” Wang said. “The DPP has been in charge for eight years now, but Taiwan’s [laws are] still full of loopholes.”
Wang pointed to news reports in the New York Times, which sounded an alarm on the escalating “spy war” between the US and China, as Taiwan is an important battleground for intelligence-gathering.
“It is known that China has greatly expanded its spying efforts in Taiwan. China’s advanced groundwork in preparation for military aggression against Taiwan is to use its spies to undermine Taiwan’s defense capability and derail weapons procurement,” he said.
“If the Ukrainian parliament and military were filled with Russian spies and proxies, Ukraine would not last long,” Wang said.
The main reasons for Taiwan implementing its own “foreign influence transparency act” are to reveal anyone — including politicians — working for enemy states and expose their financial sources, Wang said, as he urged people to vote for TSP legislative candidates in the January election and support its “10 plus one” action plan for fighting Chinese espionage.
TSP legislator-at-large nominee Yang Pei-hua (楊佩樺) said the nation has seen quite a few espionage case convictions, but that the suspects were given lenient sentences of a few months or years.
Academic and TSP legislator-at-large nominee Shih Wei-chu (史惟筑) said that there have been numerous reports and incidents of local representatives signing economic and cultural cooperation agreements with Chinese officials for their personal benefit, which runs contrary to Taiwan’s interests.
“If we pass a foreign influence transparency act, then those who are working with China would need to reveal their links and financial sources so that the authorities could get a good handle on illegal activities,” Shih said.
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