I hope you don't recognize any of these men, their days left on this earth are few and will surely be unpleasant. What I really hope is that they are indeed guilty of the charges. Please read that sentence carefully before having a knee-jerk reaction such as that of me wishing the worst upon fellow citizens of this Earth. Of course, with my relative lack of experience in what happens to Taiwanese spies in such a complex situation, I could be reading the potential consequences from an irrelevant viewpoint: since Taiwan is a "Province" of the People's Republic of China, then they can hardly be labeled as espionage agents of a foreign country. Can they be labeled as domestic industrial spies? How draconian should the sentences be if Beijing wants not to inflame Taiwanese voters before the March "elections"? The unpleasantries aside, from a jurisprudence perspective, the more I ponder it, this is a most interesting case.
They were Fu Hongzhang, Lin Jieshan, Song Xiaolian, Wang Changyong, Zhang Genghuan, Zhang Yuren, Tong Taiping and Li Xiangheng.
Tong Taiping was caught on Dec. 4, 2003, by security guards while collecting intelligence at the Guangzhou Huangpu Shipyard.
The others were detained on Dec. 15, 2003, for interrogation on suspicion of collecting military intelligence in Guangdong, Fujian, Anhui and Hainan provinces.
The investigation is now underway.
The Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits has informed the Foundation for Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits of the spies' situation.
