It is worth noting that military from any country around the world should be extremely strict when it comes to an army officer leaking military secrets to other countries and when that country is China and the officer is from Taiwan then the action is extremely severe. That is exactly what has happened in Taiwan as the country has found out a few army officers have been leaking military secrets to China from last few months. Taiwan’s Defence Ministry revealed that “a lieutenant colonel surnamed Hsieh and other defendants were suspected of having been recruited by China to leak national defense secrets and other information”.
Hsieh is also suspected of developing a spy organization of current and retired military personnel tasked with collecting intelligence for China. Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said in a statement, “The Ministry of National Defense is saddened and severely condemns the small number of unscrupulous people who violated the duty of defending the country and committed such crimes as betraying the people of the country”. As per reports, “A retired army major and three other people have also been questioned in the case and released on bail between 20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($630) and 600,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($19,000)”.
It is worth mentioning that the Taiwanese Government is currently fighting diplomatically with the Chinese on the world stage and this does have a major setback for their re-election in the Taiwan Elections 2024 but the fact that these people have now been caught means that the information that was being relayed all this while to their Chinese counterparts will be stopped completely and if there are no others involved in this who are not caught then this could be a big win for the Taiwanese military.
It is also accused that China runs a “long-standing campaign to recruit retired Taiwanese military personnel to supply state secrets in exchange for money or gifts”. The fact that these people are enticed by such gifts or money is very worrisome for the Taiwanese military and its government and there should be something that needs to be done in order to stop this from taking place again.
