With the polls consistently favoring a second-term majority government for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), it was inevitable that China would seek to ramp up its disinformation campaign with a piece of dramatic news designed to sway voters ahead of tomorrow’s elections.
In a joint report on Wednesday, Australia’s The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald revealed Beijing’s plan — a scheme that appears to have backfired.
The plot centered around William Wang Liqiang (王立強), a “middleman” working with Chinese intelligence operatives, who defected to Australia last year and in November went public with explosive allegations of a Chinese espionage ring interfering in the domestic politics of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.
Speaking to Australian media, Wang claimed that Chinese spies had infiltrated Taiwanese media, temples and grassroots organizations as part of a major operation to meddle with Taiwan’s democracy, including local elections in November 2018 — which saw the surprise election of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politician Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) as Kaohsiung mayor.
Wang claimed to have helped funnel campaign donations to Han’s mayoral campaign and described his election as a “huge win” and a “glorious record” for his team. Han has denied receiving funds from China.
Wang said that before he defected, he was assigned to travel to Taiwan to work on unseating Tsai. Beijing dismissed all of Wang’s claims, including that he was a Chinese spy, claiming that he was a fugitive on the run from the police.
The newspapers revealed that KMT Deputy Secretary-General Alex Tsai (蔡正元) and a Chinese businessman named Sun Tianqun (孫天群) contacted Wang over the Christmas holiday. Using messaging apps, Alex Tsai and Sun attempted to coerce Wang into filming, and then releasing online, a prepared video statement in which he would have retracted all of his previous allegations and claimed that the DPP had offered him a large sum of money to spread lies about Chinese espionage in Taiwan.
Sources from within the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation shared screenshots of the messages with the newspapers, which show a series of threats and inducements made to Wang, beginning on Dec. 24. The messages appear to include Alex Tsai offering Wang safe passage to Taiwan, arranged by the KMT, while Sun threatened Wang with extradition to China and the punishment of his family if he failed to cooperate.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is treating the alleged threats to Wang seriously and has launched an investigation. The Central News Agency has also obtained a screenshot of the messages, which appear to show Alex Tsai and Sun discussing how to deal with Wang.
Alex Tsai yesterday held a news conference during which he released a video conversation with Wang, denied threatening him and claimed that the DPP had offered Wang a “large sum of money,” but did not provide evidence to substantiate the claim.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang (陳明堂) confirmed that he has received a letter from the AFP requesting information on Alex Tsai.
China, aided by Alex Tsai, appears to have been trying to falsely implicate the DPP in a bribery scandal to influence the outcome of tomorrow’s elections. This is serious stuff.
The government should instruct Taiwan’s security agencies to share all available intelligence, including Alex Tsai’s telephone records, with the AFP to assist with their investigation.
If the allegations turn out to be true, it constitutes a serious attempt at election interference by Beijing and treasonous behavior by at least one member of the KMT.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS