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.
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