MND vows zero tolerance for bullying after new evidence in 206th Brigade death

Taiwan defence ministry spokesperson Lieutenant General Sun Li-fang said on Thursday that the ministry has zero tolerance for bullying in any form after new audio evidence surfaced in the case of an army first lieutenant who died after a fall at the 206th Infantry Brigade base in Guanxi, Hsinchu County.

The lieutenant, surnamed Wang, died on 30 September. Focus Taiwan reported that her family gave the Sixth Army Corps an audio recording from Threads on 12 October. In the clip a woman apologises while asking about her work and a man berates her for failing to remember what she had been taught, the agency said.

At the ministry regular press briefing on 15 October 2026, Sun said evidence has been handed to judicial investigators and that the ministry bars bullying between peers, by seniors against juniors, or by more experienced personnel against less experienced ones, regardless of rank. He said Defence Minister Wellington Koo is paying close attention and that service members life and health come first.

Major General Chien Ying-hung, Sixth Army Corps director of political warfare, said the Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office took charge immediately after the death and that an army legal team opened a disciplinary inquiry on 1 October. After the family delivered the recording on 12 October, the corps sent it the same day, with family witnesses present, to the prosecutors office and the Hsinchu Military Police Force.

Chien said the human-resources officer heard on the call and Lieutenant Wang were classmates from the same reserve-officer training class and were peers, not a superior-subordinate pair. Liberty Times reported that Wang had been a company platoon leader and that the personnel officer served as a brigade headquarters platoon leader handling clerical duties when the two had a handover.

Reporters pressed Chien on whether the corps had earlier said bullying played no role. He said public comments followed prosecutors guidance and that the military would not speculate; any illegal conduct would not be excused, concealed or protected, and the judiciary would establish the facts. SETN likewise reported the ministry zero-tolerance line alongside the corps referral of the family recording.

Chien added that prosecutors examined Wang phone after the postmortem, ruled out homicide and returned the handset to the family, so the army did not hold that device data, and that counselling and controlled psychiatric medication arrangements are part of the inquiry. The ministry and corps both stressed full cooperation with prosecutors.

The Thursday ministry statement puts a zero-tolerance policy on the record at ministry level while new family audio moves through prosecutors, after the Sixth Army Corps 12 October referral already covered on TaiwanDefence. Anyone in Taiwan needing support can call Lifeline 1995 or the Teacher Chang line 1980.