The most serious espionage case in years was cracked this week. Tseng Chao-wen (
But this was not China's only espionage network here. Spies have been planted throughout the country, gathering information and endangering the national security. This should come as no surprise. The problem is how to deal with it.
Not long ago, National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Kang Ning-hsiang (
The greatest threat comes through various legal and illegal channels. China has exported diseases, drugs and weapons to Taiwan. At the same time, certain local media, politicians and activist groups are promoting unification in the name of patriotism. The public should be very concerned about these activities.
The Bureau of Investigation also estimates that there are over 3,000 Chinese agents here. These agents gather intelligence on Taiwan's political and economic structures and personnel, science parks and other strategically important locations, defense installations in particular.
China has also sent Taiwanese people back here to carry out tasks aimed at achieving unification. In particular, they have recently begun to recruit legislators and powerful business figures to participate in "advanced studies" in China. After being offered preferential treatment, these individuals come back as spokespeople for China and the Chinese nationalist agenda. The propagandist role they play is obvious, but the reaction of authorities is, more often than not, flaccid.
China has even begun to recruit retired government officials to further their business interests in China, as well as entice young Taiwanese to go to China as tourists or for study. This is compelling evidence of how the unificationist agenda is becoming more diverse and creative. In Taiwan we see no corresponding mechanisms to withstand this trend, and government agencies are not sufficiently integrated to develop and execute measures to address the threat. These gaps in the national security have to be filled.
It is imperative that the NSC, the agency in charge of our national security, the Bureau of Investigation and the MIB review each ministry and their organizational structure to this end. These agencies would also do well to take a good look at their own structures and practices and build up a national security net to protect the public from both the threat without and the emerging threat within.
China's espionage activities have been growing in sophistication and scope, and the response has been sluggish. But a late response is much better than no response at all.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises, the largest naval exercise in the region, are aimed at deepening international collaboration and interaction while strengthening tactical capabilities and flexibility in tackling maritime crises. China was invited to participate in RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but it was excluded this year. The underlying reason is that Beijing’s ambitions of regional expansion and challenging the international order have raised global concern. The world has made clear its suspicions of China, and its exclusion from RIMPAC this year will bring about a sea change in years to come. The purpose of excluding China is primarily
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the