China working to poach Taiwan's high-tech talent, steal core technologies: MAC

Taipei, Aug. 29 (CNA) The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday warned that China was stepping up its efforts to poach Taiwan's high-tech talent and steal its core technologies, as evidenced by a recent increase in the number of such cases.

Taiwan's development is based on technology, which means it is extremely important that the country maintains its technological strength and edge, MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a press conference.

"The poaching of our high-tech talent has always been a major concern for us," Liang said, adding that three cases related to such actions were prosecuted last week in Taiwan.

The incidence of three such cases in one week is an indication that the efforts by Chinese enterprises to poach Taiwan's high-tech talent are growing, he said.

Liang's remarks followed a press statement by MAC on Wednesday, which said that China may ramp up its efforts to poach talent from Taiwan and steal its core technologies, amid increasingly strained economic and trade relations between China and Western countries.

"Taiwan should avoid becoming a weak link in the democratic camp's technology and talent outflow," the statement read.

On Thursday, LUXSHARE-ICT Co., Ltd., which has a Chinese parent company, was cited by Liang as one of the Taiwanese companies involved in those three prosecuted cases last week.

The charges against the company included conspiring with two former employees of TDK TAIWAN Corp., a Taiwan subsidiary of a Japanese electronics enterprise, to carry out actions in violation of Taiwan's Trade Secrets Act, according to the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office.

The two former TDK TAIWAN employees, surnamed Wu (吳) and Huang (黃), had been working in research and development and they illegally reproduced and leaked the company's core technologies to LUXSHARE-ICT's Chinese parent company around the time they were leaving their jobs in 2020, the prosecutors' office said in a press statement.

Wu and Huang breached their confidentiality obligations to TDK TAIWAN in pursuit of higher salaries at LUXSHARE-ICT after being recruited by the chairman of LUXSHARE-ICT's Chinese parent company to establish a research and development team in Taiwan, the release said.

Their acts of industrial espionage resulted in economic losses of at least NT$12.3 billion (US$385 million) for TDK TAIWAN, the prosecutors' office said, calling for heavy sentences against them.