Like a CIA-Informant Taiwan's nuclear weapon development, stopped

Like a CIA-Informant Taiwan's nuclear weapon development, stopped

In January 1988, one of Taiwan's highest nuwrikers deserted to the United States after giving decisive information about a secret program that was supposed to change the course of Taiwan's story.

The role of Colonel Chang Hsien-Yi

Colonel Chang Hsien-Yi was a central figure in the Taiwanese nuclear weapons project, which between the 1960s and 1980s was a strictly guarded secret, while Taipei tried to develop his first atomic bomb to keep up with China. He was also an informant of the CIA.

Chang revealed Taiwan's secret nuclear program to the United States, the closest allies of which were the country. Ultimately, this information led to the fact that the USA exerted pressure on Taiwan to end the program - according to experts for non -distribution, shortly before the conclusion.

Although critics say that he betrayed his home and undermined Taipei's ability to deter a possible Chinese invasion, Chang said in a rare interview with CNN that he was still convinced that he had made the right decision. "There was no betrayal at all," he said of his home in Idaho, where he lives with his family.

Chang and the nuclear ambitions of Taiwans

1964, just 15 years after the end of the Chinese civil war, Beijing successfully tested an atomic bomb, which the government in Taipei deeply worried because it feared that one day it could be used against the island. Two years later, Chiang Kai-Hek started a secret project to lay the technical foundations for the development of nuclear weapons in the next seven years.

The Chungshan Science Research Institute headed the project under the Ministry of Defense, and Chang started working as a captain a year later. It was selected for advanced nuclear training, which also included stays in the United States. After studying physics and nuclear science in Taiwan, he took part in Tennessee at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

the American suspicions

in 1977, a year after receiving his doctorate in nukingenieors from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Chang returned to Taiwan. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and directed the development of computer programs for the simulation of nuclear explosions at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (iner), a national laboratory that drove weapons development under civilian advances

The Taiwanese leaders faced a delicate balancing act: the United States strictly rejected new nuclear weapons programs worldwide, and Taipei could not afford to annoy its most important allies.

A turning point in the life of Chang Hsien-Yi

Chang’s life - and that of his wife and three children - took a dramatic turn in January 1988 when the CIA brought her to the USA. At this point, the Reagan administration had collected enough evidence and took the opportunity to move through the death of President Chiang Ching-Kuo to move his reform-oriented successor Lee Teng-Hui to work.

experts say that Chang was the decisive informant who proved Washington that Taiwan's nuclear program had to be closed. In the months after Chang's departure, the United States sent specialists to reduce a plutonium separation system - a facility that was designed to win nuclear materials for weapons production.

hero or traitor?

Some Taiwanese voices had criticized Chang by saying that he had exaggerated with his decision to act unilaterally, that the island would be better without nuclear deterrence. Nevertheless, others emphasize that the waiver of a nuclear option has not excessively affected the modern defense skills of Taiwan.

The military partnership and the Silicon Shield

Taiwan buys weapons from the United States that are still the central military partner of the country despite the closure of the nuclear program. In addition, the island, which plays a key role in the global semiconductor supply chain, which is viewed by some as a more effective deterrent factor as an atomic bombs, developed a function that is known as "Silicon Shield".

for Chang Hsien-Yi, who became Christian and enjoyed playing the golf, was the decision that he made four decades ago. He said: "Maybe that's good for the Taiwanese people. At least we have not provoked Mainland China to start an aggressive war against Taiwan."