Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
Chinese Communists seek outside investment to fund their military ship-building program
Who knows? For his generous contribution, the ChiComs might even name an aircraft carrier after the old boy.
(KMT chairman emeritus Lien Chan in his new People's Liberation Army duds following his disgraceful attendance and endorsement of a Communist military parade. Image from Holy Mosquito)
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Taiwan Today has the story:
The ROC Military Supreme Court sentenced former Maj. Gen. Lo Hsien-che to life imprisonment July 25 for selling secrets to mainland China and jeopardizing national security.
(Major General Lo Hsien-che image from Taiwan Today.)
SinoDaily describes the information Taiwan's Turncoat General is said to have passed along to China:
. . . documents Lo handed over to China included details of the Po Sheng (Broad Victory) command, control and communications system that Taiwan is buying from US defence contractor Lockheed Martin for US$1.6 billion.
They said Beijing is believed to be extremely interested in learning more about the project, which gives the Taiwanese military some access to US intelligence systems.
Other information leaked by Lo reportedly covered the army's procurement of 30 Boeing-made Apache AH-64D Longbow attack helicopters and the army's underground optical fibre network.
As for motive, there are some reports that Maj. Gen. Lo was seduced by a Chinese female agent. Lo, on the other hand, claims he turned traitor only after Chinese Intelligence threatened to expose damaging photos of himself in the company of Thai prostitutes, taken while he was stationed in Bangkok. (As utterly improbable as THAT scenario may sound…)
Others may speculate that he was merely doing some "eventual reunification" freelance work. As some Chinese Nationalists have occasionally been known to do.
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Apparently, Taiwan's Chinese ultranationalist "Supreme Leader" isn't the only one who believes that Japan's Senkaku islands belong to China:
A tense maritime incident Tuesday in which two Japanese patrol vessels and a Chinese fishing boat collided near a disputed island chain triggered a diplomatic spat between the Asian giants.
[…]
The Chinese boat's bow then hit the Yonakuni's stern and also collided with another Japanese patrol boat, the Mizuki, some 40 minutes later, Kyodo reported citing the coast guard.
All the more reason for America to participate in joint exercises with ally Japan to exert sovereignty over the islands. Because contrary to the assertions made by Taiwan's China Post, Peking's Pekinese Ma Ying-jeou in Taipei simply cannot be counted on if Beijing makes a land-grab.
According to the most recent computer wargame simulations conducted by the island nation's Ministry of National Defense.
The ruling Chinese Nationalist Party of Taiwan was said to be horrified by the revelation, and vowed to rectify the country's precarious situation by blocking all weapons procurement bills at least 60 times over the course of the next two years.
It's all part of Chinese puppet president on Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou's ingenious Swiss-cheese defense strategy. Build a big wall, then punch holes in it. Or in 21st Century parlance, ask for advanced fighter aircraft — then let spies take pics of military installations with impunity:
[…]
. . . [the Chinese "tourist"] was caught taking photos of military equipment installed at a computer warfare command center that is part of a military recruitment complex on Keelung Road in downtown Taipei. The recruitment center is open to the general public, but the computer warfare command area is a restricted facility.
Guy sneaks into a cyberwarfare center, and the Taiwanese authorities release him without bail. Perish the thought that an honorable Communist Party member such as he would ever abscond !
(Compare that to former president Chen Shui-bian, who's has been held in pre-trial detention for 6 1/2 months. But then, he doesn't have friends in Zhongnanhai places.)
UPDATE: Takes on this from The View from Taiwan and J. Michael Cole.
UPDATE (Jun 3/09): The Chinese spy returns home, scot-free. We'll be seeing a lot of this, I think.
Taiwan's China Post, denouncing the country's main independence party's efforts to prevent recognition of Chinese diplomas in Taiwan:
Let's leave aside the irony of the China Post now posing a champion of the individual (the paper which obsequiously applauded Taiwan's martial law-era rulers as it mercilessly crushed the rights of individuals for 40 years).
No, let's instead look at the security implications of the policy. Mr. Peabody, if you'll do the honors and set the Way-Back machine back to the 1970s:
[…]
Based on a huge cache of hitherto secret East German intelligence documents, including complete Stasi mole files of two British academics code-named "Armin" and "Diana," Insight/BBC has established the Stasi had a high recruitment success rate among American and British exchange students. "Regardless of whether these were students from Britain or other countries, as a general rule one out of 10 attempts to recruit someone for the secret service were successful," says Pieter Richter, a former HVA analyst. [emphasis added]
There you have it. A full TEN PERCENT of American & British students who studied in East Germany returned home as communist spies.
What would the number be for Taiwanese students studying in China, I wonder? Fewer language barriers. Fewer cultural differences to work against their recruiters' effectiveness. A "Greater China" mentality already inculcated into many of them by a Chinese nationalist educational establishment . . .
So I'll say 20%. Yes, twenty percent. Give or take some change.
Postscript: I seem to recall blogging on this subject a couple years back, and that 10% figure seems to ring a bell. Worth repeating now, now that the policy isn't just a hypothetical anymore.
David Gelernter, the computer scientist who was maimed by the Unabomber a few years back, discusses the discovery of a Trojan horse program originating from China:
Nice turn of phrase there. The Chinese government's reaction was certainly telling. Chinese officials COULD have calmly announced that **ahem** freelance hackers must be at fault, and that they'd launch an investigation to find those responsible.
Instead what the world heard was the shoe on the table. LIES, LIES, these are all LIES! Those devious CANADIAN schemers are trying to start a new COLD WAR for their own malicious purposes!
Very . . . Kremlinesque. China launches Cold War-style cyber attacks — then accuses the VICTIMS of its attacks of trying to start a Cold War.
Gelernter outlines why China's cyberwarfare was so difficult to uncover:
His conclusion?
GhostNet reminds us that the new Cold War won't be fought with the threats and weapons of the old one. Americans might have less trouble keeping in mind occupied Tibet, the war on Chinese Christianity, the imprisonment and torture of political dissidents and members of Falun Gong, the one-child-only decree and other specimens of PRC tyranny if they didn't find Asian-on-Asian violence so deucedly boring. Instead of paying attention to those issues, we simper about mutual respect and cooperation–without acknowledging the fact that China is today the world's most powerful Evil Empire. The Soviets favored large armies and nuclear arsenals, but China is our new Cold War enemy, and her favorite weapons will also be novel: financial weapons, trade weapons, cyberweapons. Welcome to Cold War II. [emphasis added]
UPDATE: Just ran across reports of Chinese cyber-warfare against India, from the Truth about China blog. More about that from the Times of India.
From Yahoo News:
Almost a year after falling victim to a "cyber-war" blamed on Russian hackers, the Baltic state of Estonia is now piloting NATO’s efforts to ward off future online attacks on alliance members.
After this week’s NATO summit in Romania, Estonia and seven other alliance partners will set up the "Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence" in Tallinn next month.
The United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Estonia’s fellow ex-communist NATO member states Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia will spearhead the project.
Be nice if Taiwan could establish some kind of unofficial channel to the new center. Leaving aside the political problems, it’d still be a tall order – must be tough finding Taiwanese IT personnel who speak Estonian.
Gee, ya think China might be trying to send Taiwan some kind of, I dunno, some kind of message, or something?
In China sailors and civilians working on the former Russian aircraft carrier Varyag, report that the ship will soon be officially renamed to the Shi Lang (after the Chinese general who took possession of Taiwan in 1681…)
(Image from Varyagworld.com)
UPDATE: A suggestion that the Varyag be re-christened the Clinton instead. Ouch.
UPDATE #2: Sep 15, 2025 The Varyag was actually renamed the Liaoning, after the Chinese province in which it was refitted.
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Saw this Reuters story in one of the local Taiwanese papers sometime within the last week, and didn’t think this should go uncorrected:
Upcoming elections in Taiwan, with lawmakers keen to appear firm on defence, nudged parliament to pass the most extensive arms budget in years, including funds to produce a missile that can strike China.
[…]
The KMT initially threatened to slash the budget for the Hsiung Feng missiles but eventually passed one third of the T$3.84 billion (US$118 million) sought for 2008, and froze the rest.
The missile, early versions of which have already been built, is being domestically developed and is believed to have a range of about 600 km (400 miles), making it capable of striking cities as far away as Shanghai. [emphasis added]
The Hsiung Feng IIE is a cruise missile, and is probably pretty accurate, even if one discounts its advertised accuracy of one meter. Unlikely that something like that would be pointed at CITIES and employed as a crude weapon of terror against civilians.
By a democracy that cares about world opinion, at any rate.