Any Taiwanese more than 30 years old will be familiar with the slogans “keep secrets and watch out for spies” and “communist spies are right beside you.” Such watchwords could once be seen in school textbooks and painted on walls everywhere, reminding Taiwanese to be on their guard against the Chinese communist threat.
This vigilance began to break down following the end of the Period of Mobilization for Suppressing Communist Rebellion in 1990 and all the more so since Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) became president last year. Spies have even been discovered in the Presidential Office and the case of alleged communist agents Wang Ren-bing (王仁炳) and Chen Pin-jen (陳品仁), though surprising, was not unforeseeable.
Hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese are visiting, doing business or living in China at any given time. Information flows freely, allowing China to pry into Taiwan’s affairs almost at will. While Wang’s political background is “pan-green,” his suspected accomplice, Chen, has “pan-blue” connections, so politicians on either side cannot point fingers. Wang entered service in the Presidential Office under the previous government.
China draws no line between “green” and “blue” when looking for collaborators. Lust and avarice are weaknesses common to all, and China knows how to exploit such foibles to the full. If Chinese intelligence agencies need to recruit informers, there are many means available — blackmail or bribery, money or sex. Now that Taiwanese have dropped their guard, they can easily take the bait and become pawns in China’s spy game.
As a result of the Ma administration’s pro-China stance, top Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) leaders are talking to China through the KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forum and KMT members are busier visiting Beijing than the Presidential Office in Taipei.
The difference between friend and foe is becoming increasingly blurred as an increasing number of the KMT rank and file follow their superiors’ lead. Anyone leaking secrets in the past would at least feel regret, but in future such behavior may instead be seen as justified and a means to improve cross-strait relations.
China used to rely on spies to obtain information on discussions and decisions made at KMT central committee meetings, but these days such information is widely reported. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office had to rely on information gathered by academics visiting Taiwan, but nowadays they simply call high Taiwanese national security officials. Because these officials often travel to China or receive Chinese visitors in Taiwan, the Chinese say they “feed at the table of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”
Compared with the information legislators, party officials and high national security officials can reveal, the information allegedly passed on by Wang and Chen was pretty low-end. However, national policy trends and other information that top leaders give China to “promote cross-strait understanding” and “reduce cross-strait animosity” are seen as part of their official duties.
The Ma administration is planning to relax restrictions on civil servants visiting China and on Taiwanese diplomats having contacts with Chinese diplomats. The door is open wider, so if the recent spy incident can serve as a wake up call for the government, it could be a good thing.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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