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?
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