The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted a man for allegedly attempting to create a Taiwanese branch of Hikvision Digital Technology Co, a Chinese drone and surveillance camera company with ties to Beijing.
The man, surnamed Lou (樓), a former sales manager for Taiwan at Hikivision, faces charges related to breaches of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the prosecutors’ office said.
Another man, surnamed Chen (陳), who is registered as the head of Koangyow Integration Machine Co and allegedly allowed Lou to use his company as a shell corporation for Hikivision, was granted deferred prosecution, it said.
Photo: Wang Ting-chuan, Taipei Times
Lou asked local distributors to delegate their recruiting rights to Hikvision and discussed salaries directly with people applying for sales positions, prosecutors said.
Hikivision is the world’s largest manufacturer of surveillance equipment. It is a Chinese People’s Liberation Army research and development partner and its main supplier of drones.
In 2020, the US Department of Defense blacklisted Hikvision products, citing the corporation’s close ties with China’s armed forces, an allegation the company denies.
That year, Lou was hired by Hikivision as its Taiwan sales manager, and in 2021 he was tasked with hiring tech workers and investing in Taiwan without authorization from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Review Committee, contravening Article 40-1 of the act, prosecutors said.
The article says that an enterprise from China or an enterprise in which it has invested in a third area cannot “engage in any business activities in Taiwan,” unless it is “permitted by the competent authorities and has established in the Taiwan Area a branch or liaison office.”
The penalty is up to three years in prison and/or a fine of up to NT$15 million (US$485,972).
Additional reporting by CNA
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS