Yesterday, Han Dong-hoon, the interim leader of the People Power Party (PPP), emphasized the need to revise the espionage law in the Criminal Code. He stated that the current law only considers espionage crimes committed against hostile countries, specifically North Korea.
This means that acts of spying and transmitting national secrets to other countries or organizations apart from North Korea cannot be punished under the current law. Han called for the necessitiy of expanding of the scope of espionage crimes to include such acts.
Most countries have strict regulations regarding espionage activities, which include gathering, disclosing, or leaking national secrets, whether the target is a friendly or hostile nation.
Robert Kim, a Korean-American who was employed with the U.S. Naval Intelligence, was convicted of espionage and sentenced to nine years in prison. This was after he provided North Korea-related information, such as the Gangneung submarine infiltration incident, to the Korean Embassy in the U.S. Steven Kim, a Korean-American nuclear expert, was also charged with espionage in 2010 for leaking information to the media about the possibility of a North Korean nuclear test.
Last month, a Chinese restaurant in Seoul was indicted by the prosecution for allegedly operating as a base for the Chinese secret police in S. Korea. However, since there was no applicable legal provision to investigate whether the restaurant was actually a Chinese secret police station, charges were filed against the operator for violating other laws such as the Food Sanitation Act and the Specialized Credit Financial Business Act.
Meanwhile, China has recently implemented a new anti-espionage law that significantly expands the scope of espionage activities. However, in South Korea, out of the 114 people who violated the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology between 2015 and 2022, only 12 have been sentenced to imprisonment.
Many of these individuals have leaked major national secrets, such as semiconductor technology, to China. In countries like the U.S. and Taiwan, such people are considered ‘economic spies’ and given heavy sentences. Therefore, it is important for S. Korea to also implement an espionage law to protect its national secrets.
The current National Court Administration in S. Korea believes that creating a new law specifically for foreigners’ espionage activities can cause confusion in the legal system, suggesting that the Military Secrets Protection Act or Act-On Prevention Of Divulgence And Protection Of Industrial Technology already allows punishment for those activities. The Democratic Party is also not very enthusiastic about the amendment.
However, the reason why investigative authorities have to rely on the Act-On Prevention Of Divulgence And Protection Of Industrial Technology law is that the espionage law is insufficient to provide strict punishments.
In today’s world, where the leakage of advanced industrial technology poses a significant threat to national interests, S. Korea needs to change its espionage law to punish the leakage of secrets severely, regardless of the nation to which the information is leaked.
