FBI charges
trio with spying for China
TAIWANESE CITIZEN: Kuo Tai-shen
is accused of helping Beijing secure top secret information about past and
planned US arms and military services sales to Taiwan
By Charles Snyder
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008, Page 1
US law enforcement officials on Monday arrested three people on charges of
spying for China to obtain top secret information on US arms sales to Taiwan
over a period of more than two years.
In a 35-page indictment brought in a federal court in Virginia, the FBI shed
light on what appears to be previously unknown military cooperation arrangements
between Washington and Taipei meant to help Taiwan deal with an attack by China.
The information allegedly involved two secret arms sales programs.
Arrested were Kuo Tai-shen (郭台生), a Taiwan-born naturalized citizen from New
Orleans holding both US and Taiwanese passports; Kang Yuxin (康玉新), a female
Chinese citizen and US permanent resident; and Gregg William Bergersen, an
employee of the US Defense Department's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA),
the organization that handles all US arms sales to Taiwan.
The indictment said that starting in January 2006, Bergersen provided Kuo with
information about US arms and military services sales, which were transmitted to
an unnamed Chinese military official in Beijing through Kang, who operated, in
spy parlance, as a "cut out" or intermediary.
The indictment focuses on two sets of secret information.
One is a command and information technology program called "Po Sheng," or "Broad
Victory" that Taiwan initiated in 2003, which included the purchase of "a
substantial amount of the technology" from the US government.
The program involves so-called C4ISR technology, which stands for command,
control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance, all considered crucial to winning any military confrontation.
"One crucial security cooperation goal for national purchasing C4ISR
technology," the indictment said, "is compatibility with United States military
systems. Accordingly, DSCA has stated its intention to release systems that
promote communications between friendly forces and the United States forces."
The indictment quotes the US Pacific Command's director of command and control
(C4) systems as saying the information "could be used to damage the United
States' national defense."
The other is a previously unknown five-year program of planned military sales to
Taiwan, apparently updated by both sides each year.
Every year, the DSCA prepares a top secret report for the US Congress on its
projected five-year sales plan for Taiwan as part of its so-called "Javits
Report," named after the late US senator Jacob Javits.
The report lists the "quantity, dollar value and name of weapons systems planned
for sale to Taiwan over the next five years," according to the indictment filed
in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Monday.
Bergersen allegedly showed last year's Javits Taiwan section to Kuo for money.
On July 14 last year, Kuo flew to Washington to visit Bergersen for the Taiwan
information he wanted. Four days later, Bergersen told Kuo over the telephone
"that he had obtained everything the United States had delivered to Taiwan from
1980 to the present, as well as the projected sales for the next five years,"
the FBI said.
After their meeting, the two had dinner, after which Kuo "spent approximately
one hour recording notes" on what Bergersen supplied.
The notes were seen by the FBI and described as "a near verbatim copy of
portions of the Taiwan sections of the Javits Report."
On a ride to Dulles International Airport outside Washington later, Kuo placed a
"half-inch folded stack of cash" into Bergersen's front shirt pocket.
"The outer bill was a US$100 note," the indictment said.
The next day, Kuo sent an e-mail message on his laptop to the Chinese military
official referred to as "PRC Official A" to say: "Just got back from DC and have
good talk with G ... [who] gave me two paper is very very sensitive. One is
about T's future Sale and he couldn't give it to me but let me hand write down
most of information. Another is the complete update of PS program, govt
everything in there about the program."
"PS" is believed to refer to Po Sheng. "T" refers to Taiwan.
The FBI says the PRC official is based in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
It quotes Kuo as saying that the official sees Kuo on all his trips to Beijing
because "the Central Committee has assigned him to take care of me."
Kuo was identified as the owner of a New Orleans furniture business.
At one point, he allegedly also tried to establish two companies to obtain
subcontracts for items sold for Po Sheng.
During a dinner at a Washington area restaurant, Kuo and Bergersen discussed
communication security.
"Bergersen revealed information about United States and Taiwan communications
security, requested that Kuo share the information with Taiwanese officials, and
asked Guo to arrange a meeting with Taiwan Ministry of Defense officials," the
FBI said.
It was not clear whether any such meeting took place, or what the purpose of
such a meeting might have been.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday it had set up a task
force to assess security leaks.
"The defense ministry considers the espionage case recently cracked in the
United States of great importance," the ministry said in a statement.
"The defense ministry has organized a contingency group to assess, and control
damage, if any, that may arise from the case," it said, without elaborating.
Hsieh
questions Ma's integrity and green card status
By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008, Page 3
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷)
yesterday continued to question the integrity of his election rival, Ma Ying-jeou
(馬英九), urging him to come clean on his US green card and join him in more
televised debates.
Hsieh asked Ma to turn in his "winter vacation assignment" and publicize his
passport dated before 1990 and that of his wife dated before 1996.
Hsieh said Ma had skillfully showed part of his immigration record between 1992
and 1994 to prove his claim that he did not travel abroad during that period but
alleged Ma had actually visited the US several times in 1994.
He claimed that the US immigration court had not nullified Ma's green card, and
Ma was still a permanent resident of the US.
Hsieh also asked Ma to produce evidence to prove his claim that his green card
had been invalidated.
"Honesty is the best policy," Hsieh said. "You can play a trick on someone, but
you cannot deceive heaven."
Saying it is not easy to judge a person by his or her appearance, Hsieh said:
"An entertainment industry star doesn't look like a bad person but makes many
women cry."
"The fundamental issue for a leader is honesty and the ability to execute.
Everything else is idle talk if a leader cannot deliver on what he or she
promises," he said.
Hsieh also said he would like to see more televised debates held to allow the
candidates to cover issues ranging from national identity, sovereignty and
economic development to personal character, performance and integrity.
Hsieh said he was sorry to see the rival camp run ads attacking him and his wife
with groundless allegations during the New Year break.
He also accused Ma of adopting "double standards," saying Ma, together with his
running mate Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), talks about loyalty and clemency on TV, but
treats people indicted for graft like convicted felons.
Meanwhile, the first televised presidential debate is scheduled next Sunday and
the second on March 9. Ma has agreed on the dates, and organizers visited Hsieh
yesterday to extend an official invitation.
The public is welcome to produce a 30-second video clip of a question they would
like to ask the candidates and upload it to the PeoPo Web site before tomorrow.
Finding
identity amidst the baloney
By Jerome
Keating
Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008, Page 8
`The senseless bickering in the Legislative Yuan would make anyone want to
say `a pox on both of your houses' and not vote.'
IF TAIWAN IS to establish its identity, it must begin with the principle that
"the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
From 5,000 years ago, when thriving Aboriginal civilizations quarried jade and
did a burgeoning sea-faring trade with Southeast Asia, Taiwan has had its
uniqueness. It was later influenced by the Dutch, the Spanish, pirates, Ming
loyalists, Qing conquerors, and the Hoklo and Hakka seeking freedom. You name it
and Taiwan received it. Each contributed a part, but the whole is greater than
the sum of its parts.
In the past century, Taiwan had two great colonizers that wanted to make the
island conform to their identity. The Japanese -- the first to control the whole
island -- imposed their rule and their language and tried to mold Taiwan into a
model colony. After Japan, the fleeing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came and
imposed their rule and their language; they promoted a different dream, the
false dream of retaking what the KMT had lost.
The Japanese were a majority imposing their identity on the minority Taiwanese.
The KMT were a minority imposing their identity on the majority Taiwanese. Both
have been a part of Taiwan's past, but the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.
Democracy has given Taiwan new life. With democracy, Taiwan now has the freedom
to declare its own dream. While some deep blue KMT still want to impose their
identity and their lost dream on Taiwan, others in their ranks are beginning to
recognize the importance of localization and consider changing the KMT party
name to "Taiwanese Nationalist Party." The whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.
Identity is not enough for progress however. The second step after identity is
to get past the media bamboozlement and down to the issues.
Henry David Thoreau stated succinctly in Walden: "Most men lead lives of quiet
desperation." I would add a corollary to his words: "Most men lead lives of
willingly being bamboozled."
This flaw in humanity is what drives companies to hire marketing executives to
persuade consumers to buy stuff they don't need. This flaw is what allows the
media to get away with providing pap instead of substance. This flaw is what
allows politicians to posture and promise and not worry about being held
accountable.
Why do people allow themselves to be bamboozled? Perhaps they hope for quick-fix
solutions and trust a person's words more than his record. Perhaps they don't
want to look beyond the immediacy of a problem to the complexities of its
source. Perhaps they would rather trust a media that is interested more in
sensationalism than investigative journalism.
Taiwan must insist the media get beyond its pap and sensationalism. Look at what
the media focused on before the elections. Taiwan had to endure media overplay
of Shih Ming-deh's (施明德) Red Shirts. Their alleged million people protest march
was in reality about 500,000 pan-blue members from their Taipei City and County
stronghold, an area that holds a KMT voter base of well over 3 million
loyalists.
March of the people? March of the KMT loyalists is more like it.
Then the Red Shirts who claimed to be anti-corruption avoided any accurate and
specific accounting of the more than US$3 million that Shih's group collected
and which disappeared in less than a year with no concrete detailed accounting.
Bamboozled again.
The reality that the media and many in Taiwan do not acknowledge is that Taiwan
has inherited governmental systems that foster and condone corruption. These
systems are inherited from the one-party state martial law days where all
officials could have a share of profits from assigned discretionary funds
according to their rank. Thus in true Ambrose Bierce style, corruption becomes
defined as accusing others for imitating what you do best. And the media and
people, rather than begin the tedious effort of reforming these systems, seek
the easy way out. They look for simple scapegoats when it is the system that
must be attacked.
Taiwanese can begin by asking who is for Taiwan and who is not and how that
loyalty is to be defined. If loyalty to Taiwan means accepting that the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts, then no politician should favor any other
country more than Taiwan no matter how close that country is.
With this loyalty established, people can get to the nitty-gritty of what
systems in the country need reform in order to improve Taiwan on all fronts from
its democracy to its economy.
The power of Taiwan is in the Legislative Yuan and not the president. It is the
past sixth Legislative Yuan that paralyzed the country by continuously refusing
its military budget without discussion, by refusing to appoint members to the
Control Yuan, the watchdog of the country, by passing the least amount of bills
in the legislature's history and by blocking any motions that the KMT should
give up its stolen assets.
Did the media focus on this reality? Not on your life -- they let the
legislature and its small controlling pan-blue majority get away with it even
when it sought to usurp the powers belonging to the executive branch.
The bamboozling has continued with the economy. Everyone complained, yet no one
bothered to notice that Taiwan's economy has been better than most countries of
the world and its unemployment rate is one of the lowest.
If you walk down Taipei's Zhongxiao E Road, the shoppers are out in full force;
entertainment and spending are alive and well in Taiwan. Yet because people are
not instant millionaires, they believe the media hype and never check reality.
Are the foreign media any help? The economies of the countries where the foreign
media reside are worse off than Taiwan, yet the foreign media would rather
report sensationalism over substance in Taiwan than compare it to their own
economy.
Bamboozled again, both locally and internationally.
So now when the KMT won an overwhelming and disproportionate victory in last
month's Legislative Yuan elections, the KMT members all had somber faces. Some
interpreted this as a sham to hide their gloating over how they had bamboozled
the public; how with as little as slightly over 50 percent of the vote, they
managed to gain more than 75 percent of the seats in the Legislative Yuan.
My own take on it is that by gaining such an overwhelming majority the KMT has
now realized that they can no longer hide. They can't blame a slim legislative
majority for being unable to pass legislation. They likewise can no longer blame
the president; they can no longer blame the economy. There will be no one to
blame except themselves and no amount of bamboozling can save them.
One final bamboozle remains, the personal and often pork barrel bamboozle. This
bamboozle is self-inflicted, either consciously or unconsciously. There were
approximately 17.3 million eligible voters, but only 9.8 million cast votes.
While this is not a disreputable percentage by some standards, it still meant
that some 7.5 million people did not vote. That total is many more votes than
the KMT received (5,010,801) and almost twice as many as the DPP got
(3,610,106). As a matter of fact, the number of non-voters combined with
independents slightly exceeds the combined total number of votes received by the
KMT and DPP.
The actual voting numbers for the KMT and DPP have not changed that much from
2004 with the exception that the KMT consolidated all the pan-blue votes under
one roof. These voters followed their traditional patterns. They favored either
their ideology or their pork barrel benefits or both. Because of this, both
parties need to ask why they did not provide convincing reasons to attract more
of the 7.5 million non-voters.
The ultimate question, however, falls on the non-voters. One can sympathize that
for many non-voters the senseless bickering in the Legislative Yuan would make
anyone want to say "a pox on both of your houses" and not vote.
Likewise, under the old system of one vote, multiple-member districts, little
accountability could be leveraged against foolish legislators. However, the
Legislative Yuan is the law-making body of the land, and with the new single
member districts, voters can now enforce accountability. Non-voters can no
longer bamboozle themselves.
No country has 100 percent turnout of voters; but even an 80 percent voter
turnout would have provided an extra 4 million votes. Certainly this would
easily have tipped the scales for the DPP.
Perhaps if mobilized behind a third party it could have pro-vided a true
reckoning force to make all sides work for justice, jobs and what is best for
Taiwan. Is this a dream? If these voters continue to refrain from voting they
are accepting their own bamboozle and refusing their identity.
Jerome Keating is a writer based in
Taiwan.