The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been markedly escalating its military infiltration activities aimed at Taiwan.
Retired air force lieutenant colonel Tu Yung-hsin (杜永心), who went to China to start a business, was recruited by a member of China’s Central Military Commission to develop a spy network in Taiwan. Tu lured active military officers to join his network, with the understanding that in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait, they would adopt a passive stance of non-resistance.
The Supreme Court sentenced Tu to four years in prison in accordance with the National Security Act (國家安全法). Consequently, military authorities determined that Tu had lost the right to receive any further military pension payments and told him to repay what he had already received over the previous 12 years.
Apart from using financial means to lure Taiwanese businesspeople and companies, and infiltrating Taiwan’s political organizations and the media, the CCP’s infiltration of Taiwan’s military is getting more serious. In its attempts to bribe serving military personnel, the CCP often targets senior officers with the aim of disintegrating Taiwan’s armed forces from within.
The military “united front”-style infiltration is intended to diminish the power of Taiwan’s national defense, paving the way for unification by force of arms.
The Tu spying case highlights the methods that the CCP uses to infiltrate Taiwan.
As well as trying to bribe high-ranking officers in Taiwan’s armed forces, it also tries to brainwash them into being loyal to the CCP. Far from being an isolated case, it is part of the CCP’s psychological warfare strategy.
The methods are covert and insidious. As well as bribery, the strategy makes clever use of psychological warfare methods to manipulate people in Taiwan and disintegrate the national defense system from the inside.
A US think tank warned that the CCP might, before Taiwan’s next presidential election in 2028, adopt a four-stage strategy of “subjugation without fighting” that would involve gradually infiltrating and controlling Taiwan.
This includes increasing Taiwan’s economic dependence on China, infiltrating the political arena and media to influence the election, and exercising more direct control.
This step-by-step means of controlling Taiwan is meant to avoid triggering an armed conflict, but the ultimate goal is still to seize Taiwan.
Faced with such pervasive recruitment and threats from the CCP, Taiwan must be more vigilant. It must bolster its national defense, especially its military power, as well as its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, to identify and obstruct the CCP’s activities.
At the same time, it must build popular consensus, raise the public’s vigilance and improve people’s ability to resist temptation, in order to prevent the CCP’s “united front” strategy from succeeding.
Only through a comprehensive response can Taiwan ensure its security and sovereignty.
Chen Chun is an international affairs researcher.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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