By AFP and Focus | 2025-09-30

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A Taiwanese court handed jail terms on September 25 ranging from 4 to 10 years to four defendants, including a former staffer in President Lai Ching-te's office, for spying for China.

The four were charged in June, a month after their expulsion from Lai's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which advocates for Taiwan's sovereignty, over suspected espionage.

China claims democratic self-ruled Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to annex it. Taipei accuses Beijing of using espionage and infiltration to weaken its defenses.

Leaking state secrets

The Taipei District Court said in a statement the four were convicted of violating the Classified National Security Information Protection Act for leaking state secrets to China.

"The information they spied on, collected, leaked and delivered involved important diplomatic intelligence ... which made our country's difficult diplomatic situation even worse," the court said.

The espionage happened "over a very long period of time," including sharing itineraries of high-level officials such as the foreign minister, which "endangers the country's diplomatic security and is highly condemnable."

The heftiest sentence, 10 years, went to Huang Chu-jung, who previously worked for a New Taipei City councilor. According to the statement, Huang mixed public information with "secrets and confidential information" he received from Ho Jen-chieh, an aide to then-foreign minister Joseph Wu, to write analysis reports "sent to Chinese agents using encrypted software."

Ho was sentenced to eight years and two months in prison. Huang and another defendant, Chiu Shih-yuan, who received a jail sentence of six years and two months, were convicted of laundering about 7.2 million TWD ($236,600) in illicit gains.

The fourth defendant, Wu Shang-yu, who had worked for Lai when he was vice president and then president, received a four-year prison term.

After detailing the individual sentences, the court stressed the wider impact of the leaks.

They fueled China's use of its "three warfares" -- legal warfare, public opinion warfare and psychological warfare, the court said.

Unequal perils

In a separate case, Air Force Academy Col. Chang Ming-che on September 25 was sentenced to 16 years in prison for spying for China, the Taipei Times reported.

The high court ruled that Chang had violated the National Security Act and ordered the confiscation of 1.34 million TWD ($43,863) in illicit benefits he received, including a sponsored trip to Bali, Indonesia.

Chang leaked sensitive information about air force drills, Taiwan-US military cooperation and the backgrounds of military personnel, and gathered data on political parties and public opinion, according to prosecutors.

Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for decades, but analysts say the threat to Taiwan is greater given the risk of a Chinese invasion.

Taiwan's National Security Bureau said previously 64 defendants were prosecuted for Chinese espionage last year, with prison sentences reaching as high as 20 years.