Australian Gets 1 Year Prison Sentence for Recruiting Taiwanese Admiral to Spy for China

Philip Drling

March 18, 2015

Australian spy’s conviction upheld in Taiwan

Taiwan’s highest court has upheld the conviction and imprisonment of an elderly Australian man for espionage. 

Taiwan’s Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Shen Ping-kang, an Australian citizen and businessman, will have to serve a 12-month sentence for using free holidays in Australia to recruit the deputy commander of Taiwan’s navy to spy for Chinese military intelligence.

The court also upheld the conviction and sentencing of retired vice-admiral Ko Cheng-sheng who “violated the highest belief, that soldiers should be loyal to their country”.

Shen and Ko were arrested in March 2013 and convicted of espionage by Taiwan’s High Court in September last year.

According to prosecutors, Shen’s involvement in trade across the Taiwan Strait led him to develop close contacts with Communist Chinese officials including officers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Political Department and a front for Chinese military intelligence, the “Shanghai City No. 7 Office”.

Chinese intelligence used Shen to recruit Ko, a close friend who as a rear admiral in Taiwan’s navy had access to top-secret information including Taiwan’s plans for defence against any military action by China.

Shen arranged several all-expenses-paid trips to Australia for Ko and his family, who was also paid to travel to Beijing and other cities in China between 1998 and 2007.

In the course of these trips, Ko met Chinese intelligence officers and began providing classified military information to China.

Ko’s value to Chinese intelligence increased when he took up duty as deputy commander of Taiwan’s naval forces and was promoted to vice-admiral in 2000.

Ko also tried to recruit other Taiwanese naval officers to organise a network to continue to steal classified information after he retired in 2003.

The former admiral appealed his conviction and sentence of 14 months’ imprisonment.

However, the Supreme Court this week observed that Ko “disregarded national security, introducing other high-ranking military officers to China, offering them an opportunity of which they could take advantage”.

The court confirmed Shen and Ko’s convictions, as well as their relatively light sentences which appear to reflect the age and poor health of both men ( Ko is 71 and Shen 76) and their preparedness to co-operate with investigators.

China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province. The case is one of a number of recent prosecutions that have exposed Chinese espionage penetration of the highest ranks of Taiwan’s military and naval forces.

A spokesman for the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defence, Major General David Lo, said the ministry respected the Supreme Court’s verdict and called on all Taiwanese military personnel to “put the nation’s interests and security before everything”.

The Australian government recognises Taiwan as part of China. In response to questions about Shen’s conviction for espionage, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has advised that the unofficial Australian representative office in Taiwan has been providing consular assistance to “an Australian man in Taipei”.