The legislature has passed a bill to increase the penalty for espionage. That’s in light of rampant cases of military personnel and civilians spying for China.
According to the bill passed on Tuesday, those who unlawfully reveal confidential intelligence, sources, organizations, or identities of intelligence officers and their assistants will be sentenced to three to ten years in prison. Those who unlawfully gather intelligence will be sentenced to between one and seven years in prison.
The maximum prison sentence for current officers and those who left the intelligence service for less than a year has also increased by 50 percent.
Taiwan has uncovered a number of spying cases in the past few years. The most high-profile case was the arrest of Major General Lo Hsien-che in 2011. Lo was the highest-ranking officer involved in espionage in decades. He was sentenced to life in 2012.