Taiwan’s defense minister Wellington Koo is coming under fire from lawmakers who say the military is "rotten" with Chinese espionage.
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00:00Could a spy for China have infiltrated the inner circles of Taiwan's government?
00:05The man, identified here with a red circle, was an aide to Joseph Wu, the country's
00:10last foreign minister and current national security chief.
00:14He's now detained, suspected of gathering information on Taiwan's leadership and passing
00:19it on to China, a cross-straight neighbour which claims sovereignty over Taiwan.
00:24Such cases of espionage are on the rise here, with most of the suspects being military personnel.
00:29Now feeling the heat, Taiwan's defence minister, Wellington Ku, called to answer questions
00:35at the legislature.
00:36What are you doing?
00:39I'm going to support you for 10 years.
00:42This is just one, just one, and it's not expensive.
00:45After we've been a soldier, you've got to win five a week for a week.
00:50Have you been destroyed?
00:53To weed out spies, Taiwan is already bringing back military courts, and now Ku says he wants
00:58to amend the military's penal code.
01:01When I was elected, I would say that it would be a violation of the North Korean War.
01:14President Li Qingde, despised by Beijing for his firm rejection of China's claims over Taiwan,
01:19has made combating Beijing's influence and infiltration central to his leadership.
01:25This rash of suspected spies coming out of the woodwork could indicate that his efforts
01:30against China, also known as the PRC, are working.
01:33There's a claim that the PRC is stepping up his espionage activities.
01:37That having been said, with espionage cases coming to the public, of course they create
01:43a lot of trepidation, they draw a lot of attention.
01:48But the fact that espionage cases are being detected, also means that espionage networks
01:54are being disrupted, right?
01:57Taiwan's defence ministry warns that China's tactics are changing, increasingly using criminal
02:02gangs and religious groups to recruit new spies.
02:05It's an evolving threat for the Taiwanese military, trying to protect their credibility
02:09and integrity as they lead the country's fight against China.
02:14Klein Wang and Rick Laot for Taiwan Plus.