Beijing has published the personal information of and offered bounties for the capture of 20 members of Taiwan’s Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM), accusing them of launching attacks on Chinese companies. Taiwan’s defense ministry has rejected the claims, calling the accusations “coercive” and part of a political intimidation campaign.
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00:00Beijing is putting bounties on the heads of more than 20 Taiwanese military personnel,
00:05accusing them of launching cyber attacks against China.
00:08It's also published their photos and put personal details online.
00:12Taiwan's defense ministry denies the accusations and says the move is a form of coercion.
00:17Reporter Chris Gorin has been following this story and joins us now from our Taipei newsroom.
00:22Chris, what exactly is China alleging here?
00:25Well, as you said, Leslie, China is accusing these 20 members of the military's Information Communication and Electronics Command,
00:36or ISEFCOM, of being part of a secret cyber army that carried out cyber attacks against a Chinese tech company last week,
00:44which Taiwan denied at the time.
00:47And the Chinese authorities in Guangzhou province even published the photos, full name and Taiwanese ID numbers of all 20 people.
00:54And they're offering bounties of up to 1,400 U.S. dollars for information leading to the arrest of each of these people.
01:03Now, separately, they released a report which describes ISEFCOM as being a kind of secret army of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party,
01:13carrying out cyber attacks on China's communications, transportation and defense networks.
01:18and, Beijing says, working with foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA, accusations that China has made before.
01:27But there's much more in the report, but that should give you a kind of flavor of what's in it.
01:33All right, Chris, so how is Taiwan's government responding here?
01:36Well, ISEFCOM has flatly denied the allegations. Let's take a listen.
01:44Now, ISEFCOM also says that China is the one carrying out cyber attacks, citing an example
02:06from last week, a cyber attack against the Czech foreign ministry.
02:10And Taiwan has previously said that it's fending off more than two million cyber attacks every
02:15single day, most of which are coming from China.
02:18Now, regarding the bounties, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which handles cross-strait
02:23relations, issued a warning to any Taiwanese people who might be thinking about working
02:28to help China find these people in Taiwan.
02:40Now, there was a similar case of China outing the identity of Taiwanese cyber workers just
02:59last year.
03:00And cybersecurity experts I've been speaking to say that this shouldn't be seen as a criminal
03:05prosecution in China of these cyber workers, but rather as part of China's broader communications
03:11and infiltration campaign to influence Taiwan public opinion.
03:16And they say that we should expect more such attacks in the future.
03:19Leslie?
03:21All right.
03:21Well, thank you for taking us through that, Chris.
03:23That was Chris Gorin reporting from the Taiwan Plus newsroom in Taipei.