A Taiwanese military veteran and politician named Chu Hung-i has been arrested along with seven others on espionage charges. They are accused of being paid by China to plot armed attacks against military targets in Taiwan and also the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial U.S. embassy in Taipei.
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00:00Local media is reporting that a Taiwanese veteran and politician has been detained on
00:05espionage charges and may have been working with China to carry out armed attacks in Taiwan.
00:12Chris Gorin has been following the story from Taipei and comes to us live now.
00:16Chris, what do we know about this case?
00:20Well, not much Joyce.
00:24Very little has been announced officially.
00:27But what we do know comes from local media reports.
00:30Now according to those reports, a retired veteran and politician named Chu Hongyi has
00:36been detained on espionage charges along with seven other people.
00:41Now the reports also say that Chu had been paid for years by an organization in China
00:48to recruit people in Taiwan and also to gather intelligence for possible armed attacks against
00:54military bases in southern and central Taiwan and possibly even against the American Institute
00:59in Taiwan or AIT.
01:01Now AIT is actually the United States' unofficial embassy in Taiwan.
01:06And it's the planning of these armed attacks that would make this case so unique.
01:11Now another unique feature of this case is that Chu is not only a veteran, but he's also
01:15a politician.
01:16He's actually the chair of a very small political party in Taiwan.
01:20Now Taiwan has hundreds of political parties.
01:23Most of them have very few members, and this is one of those parties.
01:26But nevertheless, the Ministry of the Interior, which regulates political parties in Taiwan,
01:32released a statement just a few hours ago stating that if these reports turn out to
01:35be true, that this would be a national security threat to Taiwan and this party would be dissolved.
01:42So this is still a developing situation, but this is what we know for now.
01:46Joyce?