It was confirmed on May 23, 2014, that 54-year old Chen Kun-shan  (???), an expert on microwave remote-sensing technology and head of the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research (CSRSR) at National Central University (NCU) since 2001 till his disappearance in September 2013, has defected to China and surfaced at the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science at Beijing Normal University. He was reportedly recruited under China’s “Thousands Talents Program,” an initiative launched to recruit foreign talent. Chen Kun-shan's wife and children had left earlier for the US.
According to the Chinese-language Liberty Times, it is likely that Chen Kun-shan may have had access to classified imagery pertaining to deployments of Taiwanese armed forces and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) across the Taiwan Strait. The article said that Chen Kun-shan’s defection represented a “serious threat” to national security. Countering those claims, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) told a press conference that Chen’s research projects did not involve “key technological development or sensitive issues.”