Taiwan to investigate US spying case

Taiwan to investigate US spying case

By Kathrin Hille in Taipei and Mure Dickie in Beijing

Published: February 12 2008 18:45 | Last updated: February 12 2008 18:45

Taiwan has launched its own investigation into the case of a Taiwan-born US citizen charged in the US with spying for China.

The US justice department said on Monday that several suspects had been arrested in China-related spy cases. The sweep points to the increasingly complex web of intelligence threats in the triangular US-China-Taiwan relationship.

The FBI arrested Gregg Bergersen, a Pentagon employee with top secret security clearances, and Kuo Tai-shen, a Taiwan-born US citizen. It said Mr Bergersen had given information about US-Taiwan defence relations, including the sale of a sophisticated military control and communications system, to Mr Kuo, who in turn passed the information on to a Chinese government official.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said it was trying to establish whether Mr Kuo had also spied on Taiwan. “We have set up a special taskforce on the case and don’t exclude the possibility that Kuo Tai-sheng also obtained other military secrets of Taiwan beyond the material on US-Taiwan military ties,” said Yu Sy Tue, a military spokesman. He said Mr Kuo was well known at the ministry as an arms trader. “We knew him in a commercial context; he traded mainly in information technology,” Mr Yu said.

The Taiwanese government said it was not informed by the US of its investigation before the announcement of the arrests this week, but the defence ministry said it had obtained information about the case “through other channels”.

Analysts said the case was only the tip of the iceberg. “I believe there are many more Taiwanese in the US spying for China still undetected, and we will see an increasing number of cases like this,” said George Tsai, an expert on cross-Strait relations in Taipei.

China maintains a threat to invade Taiwan should the island formalise its de facto independence. The US has pledged to help Taiwan defend itself.

This week’s cases are the latest in a long series in which ethnic Chinese in the US have been accused of involvement in gathering military intelligence for Beijing. Analysts predict that China will increasingly recruit Taiwanese for such activities because they would attract less suspicion than their mainland counterparts.

“And while in the past those Taiwanese willing to do this would be those from families [who moved there from China after 1949] who believe in a unified China, we will increasingly see the recruitment of ethnic Taiwanese who agree to help China because they have business interests in China,” said Mr Tsai. Taiwanese companies, with an estimated cumulative $150bn (€103bn, £76.5bn) in investments on the mainland, are believed to be China’s largest source of foreign direct investment.

A Taiwanese defence official said that increasing recruitment of this group by China could make the protection of military secrets “unmanageable”.

China has in the past insisted it does not spy on the US. However, security analysts say the Chinese military is keen to learn more both about US defence technology and about the details of Washington’s security co-operation with Taiwan. Beijing has also been repeatedly accused of using state agencies to conduct commercial espionage.

A relative lack of electronic surveillance equipment and expertise means Chinese agencies are largely dependent on human intelligence gathering, analysts say.