China linked to Taiwan espionage cases
The Irish Times – Saturday, May 21, 2011
CLIFFORD COONAN in Beijing
CHINA WAS linked to two very different cases of espionage yesterday as military prosecutors in Taiwan indicted a general on charges of providing military secrets to China, and a US navy sailor pleaded guilty to trying to sell classified documents to someone he believed was a Chinese intelligence officer.
Maj Gen Lo Hsien-che has been in detention since January and the case has transfixed Taiwan, as it is one of the most serious security breaches in modern Taiwanese history. Military prosecutors said they will seek a sentence of life in prison.
China considers breakaway Taiwan a renegade province, an inviolable part of its territory since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang lost the civil war with chairman Mao Zedong’s Communists and fled across the Strait of Taiwan in 1949. Both Taiwan and China regularly spy on each other.
Mr Lo “hurt the national interest and national security, and is a big blow to the reputation and morale of the army”, the military said in a statement.
Mr Lo wanted to sell the documents to the Chinese because he believed they would pay the most for them.
He is accused of collecting information related to United States arms sales, passing on military intelligence, spying and taking bribes. He leaked information about an integrated command, communications and control network that Taiwan is establishing with US infrastructure. Mr Lo is the highest-ranking member of the military to spy for China in half a century.
US petty officer 2nd class Bryan Minkyu Martin (22) faces a maximum sentence of life in prison after he pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted espionage.
At his court martial, the intelligence specialist who was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina at the time, preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan, said he accepted $11,500 (€8,100) from an undercover FBI agent known to him only as “Mr Lee” in exchange for information, documents, photographs and images that were classified as secret or top secret.
The documents involved naval operations and intelligence assessments related to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Authorities say the documents were delivered to the agent in November and December.
Mr Martin said he had spoken to the undercover agent by telephone, but had never seen him until their first meeting in a hotel lobby, saying he identified the mysterious “Mr Lee” because he was reading a Chinese newspaper.