Various newspapers in Taiwan have taken different approaches to the case in which Wang Ren-bing (王仁炳), a senior specialist at the Presidential Office’s Department of Special Affairs, and Chen Pin-jen (陳品仁), a former assistant to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟), are accused of having colluded to leak secrets from the Office of the President.
The Chinese-language United Daily News said: “He may be a member of the pan-green camp and he may be a specialist, but he can still sell out Taiwan.”
While the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) ran the headline “Wang Ren-bing is a pan-green supporter, Chen Pin-jen a pan-blue.”
The former paper is pro-blue, the latter pro-green. The pan-blues want to blame the affair on the pan-greens, and vice versa. The truth of the matter is the question of civil servants leaking state secrets goes beyond blue and green, and it has become a major, if unspoken, national security concern. Wang and Chen’s behavior has made waves, but it is not such a big deal as it may seem. It has made waves because it is the first case in which Presidential Office staff have been implicated as informants for China, and because the leaked information about arrangements for the presidential handover ceremony, among other things, included details of the president’s movements, including times and locations.
Since such information about a head of state would be vital for a decapitation strike, the authorities of any country will attempt to keep it confidential. In that sense, it is a big deal.
On the other hand, information about a president’s schedule is known to his security guards, and journalists can find out about it easily by just asking. Although such information is sensitive, it is not hard to get. In that sense, this leak was no big deal at all. If Chen is really an informant, then he is only one of many legislative assistants who play that role.
This is by no means a new problem. Many years ago there was a case in which a legislator’s assistant was investigated and prosecuted for helping China get hold of budgets from the ministries of defense and foreign affairs. Later the Chinese went so far as to directly ask legislators for confidential budget information.
Since the signing of a joint declaration between then-KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in 2005, the two parties have become as close as members of the same family and have held a series of open forums.
Meanwhile, Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤), chairman of the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (海基會), is at liberty to pop over to Shenzhen for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) whenever he feels like it. In the past, China relied on informants — KMT party workers or reporters — to find out what was being discussed by the KMT’s Central Standing Committee. Nowadays Beijing gets reports direct from the source both before and after committee meetings.
In the past, Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office relied for its information on academics specializing in Taiwan affairs who could visit Taiwanese to make inquiries. Now all they have to do is pick up the phone and call their high-ranking contacts in Taiwan’s national security apparatus. Many of those higher-ups are people who not so long ago were visiting China every few days, or seeing off and welcoming people who regularly traveled across the strait — people who, as the Chinese like to say, get their rice on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
The problem is that, while the rank and file face penalties if they leak confidential information, those at the top can get away with it. When senior officials do this kind of thing, they can rationalize it in terms of “promoting cross-strait understanding” or “reducing hostilities.” If your average civil servant tries the same thing, it is a crime.
Things have moved on since Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) became president. As his government leans closer and closer to China and the line between “them” and “us” gets blurred, we are going to see more and more junior civil servants following their masters’ example. In the past, at least people who leaked secrets knew they were doing something wrong. Now they actually take pride in believing that they have done something good for China and Taiwan.
When Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin visited Taiwan last November, he was treated as an honored guest of state, and police were ordered to remove national flags from roadsides for fear of offending him. China, it seems, is no longer an enemy country, but rather one to which Taiwan owes allegiance.
How could it be a crime to pass reports to one’s senior ally? At a welcome banquet for Chen, People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) congratulated him for having friendly connections in every corner of Taiwan, which sounds like public approval of China’s united front strategy.
Who is to say, then, whether civil servants are harming Taiwan’s interests if they leak information, or making a positive contribution to promoting cross-strait relations?
The KMT government is now planning to greatly reduce restrictions on civil servants visiting China, and to allow Taiwanese embassies abroad to have contacts with Chinese diplomats.
The way things are going, we can expect to see more and more civil servants follow the example of our leaders and taking it upon themselves to do a little something to promote cross-strait relations.
If the incident involving Wang Ren-bing and Chen Pin-jen knocks some sense into Ma and his government, it may not be such a bad thing after all.
Liang Wen-chieh is deputy director of the New Society for Taiwan (台灣新社會智庫).
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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