Taiwan jails four soldiers, including three who worked in presidential office, for spying for China
Soldiers had worked for ‘extremely sensitive and important units’ and ‘their acts betrayed the country’, Taipei court says
A Taiwan
court has sentenced four soldiers, including three who worked in the
president’s security team, to jail for up to seven years on charges of
spying for China.
The men were convicted of
violating the national security law by passing “internal military
information that should be kept confidential to Chinese intelligence
agents for several months” between 2022 and 2024, the Taipei district
court said on Wednesday.
Three
of the four convicted were members of a military unit in charge of
security for the Presidential Office, while the fourth was a soldier in
the defence ministry’s information and telecommunications command. Three
of the soldiers were discharged from the military before an
investigation was launched in August last year after a tip-off to the
defence ministry, and the fourth was suspended.
According
to the court, the four received payments from around NT$260,000 to
NT$660,000 ($7,850-$20,000) in return for taking photographs of
information with their mobile phones.
The
defendants had worked for “extremely sensitive and important units but
violated their duties to accept bribes, and stole secrets by
photographing”, the court said in a statement.
“Their acts betrayed the country and endangered national security.”
The four received jail terms ranging from five years and 10 months to seven years.
The number of people prosecuted in Taiwan for allegedly spying for China
has risen sharply in recent years as the military and civilian
investigative bodies crack down on infiltration and espionage. Many of
those prosecuted have been current or retired members of Taiwan’s
military, recruited by Beijing or its agents in Taiwan.
Beijing
has vowed to annex Taiwan, which it claims is Chinese territory. It has
not ruled out using force to do so, but in the meantime runs
multifaceted pressure campaigns including greyzone acts of military
intimidation, cyberwarfare, disinformation and espionage.
Earlier this month Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, designated China
as a “foreign hostile power” and announced a swathe of new measures to
counter its efforts. The measures include plans to reinstate military
courts to hear cases of espionage and other offences involving military
personnel.
Last week Taiwan’s government also announced increases to the base pay rates of Taiwan military personnel.
The
relatively small payments disclosed in some cases had drawn attention
to the conditions and benefits offered to Taiwan’s serving military.
Last year Dr Shen Ming-Shih, a research fellow at the Taiwan
government-linked thinktank the Institute for National Defense and
Security Research, said some recruited spies were lured
by financial and sexual incentives, while others were driven by
bitterness over their treatment or lack of advancement during their
career.
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait have
been spying on each other for decades. But analysts have warned that
espionage is a bigger problem for Taiwan, which faces the existential
threat of a Chinese invasion.
Taiwan’s
intelligence agency previously reported that 64 people were prosecuted
for Chinese espionage in 2024, compared with 48 in 2023 and 10 in 2022.
In 2017 Taiwan’s government estimated there were more than 5,000 spies
working for China in Taiwan.
Cases have
included soldiers filming themselves declaring they will surrender as
soon as China’s military invades, or making written pledges of loyalty
to the Chinese Communist party. Some retired officers have allegedly
been paid to recruit active soldiers.