The indictment documents in former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) four legal cases include a “Fu Dongju [傅冬菊] ruse.” The plan primarily focused on the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) enthusiastic wooing of children of Taiwanese politicians and economic elites. So who was Fu and have TPP supporters ever heard of her or acknowledged this plan?
Fu was a reporter for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Daily, among other CCP newspapers, writing under the pen-name Fu Dong (傅冬). She was the eldest daughter of Fu Zuoyi (傅作義), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) commander in charge of the suppression campaign to root out the CCP in northern China in the late 1940s.
Fu Dongju was an undercover agent and member of the CCP.
During the long-lasting feud and civil war between the KMT and the CCP, her greatest contribution to the CCP’s war efforts was using her family relations and her father’s trust to covertly glean and deliver messages to the CCP about the KMT’s suppression campaigns, which ultimately caused her father’s campaigns to fail.
Eventually, she negotiated secret talks between her father and the CCP, after which he defected and surrendered his forces to the CCP, leading to the “peaceful liberation of Beiping [Beijing].”
After Fu Zuoyi surrendered to the CCP, the party stripped him of all his military command powers and repaid him with the purely titular position of “Minister of Water Resources.” The 600,000 defected nationalist troops formerly under his command were deployed by the CCP to serve as cannon fodder during the Korean War, further benefiting the CCP by ridding it of a potentially disloyal force. Unsupported and without adequate supplies, nearly the entire force was annihilated on the Korean Peninsula fighting against the South and UN peacekeeping forces.
As for Fu Dongju, despite being highly successful in orchestrating her father’s defection, she was victimized in the Cultural Revolution and seen as a “class dissident.” She was brutally beaten by Red Guard soldiers, and although she survived her ordeal, she eked out the rest of her life in ill health and abject poverty.
To the KMT, Fu Zuoyi was a traitor to the Republic of China and its military.
For her part, Fu Dongmei (傅冬梅) — one of Fu Dongju’s other names — committed treason by selling out her own father.
The term “Fu Dongju plan” has made an appearance in 21st century Taiwan’s so-called “new politics.” It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry while watching this circus.
Does Ko see himself as a reincarnation of Mao Zedong (毛澤東)? Is he trying to pull off a plot against the KMT, or could it just be that he always planned to sell out the country? It is a baffling situation. What are the impressions of these targeted children of Taiwanese politicians and wealthy elites in being compared to Fu Dongju, as well as Fu Zuoyi?
The indictments revealed that Ko tried to replicate the ploy to incite defections as seen in the Chinese Civil War, implementing his Fu Dongju ruse, asking TPP Secretary-General Vincent Chou (周榆修) to rope in the children of politicians and wealthy elites, wanting them to ask their parents for money and resources.
“Who is the daughter of the mayor of Zhudong Township (竹東)? Do you know who we could ask to get in contact with her? We need to carry out our ‘Fu Dongju plan.’ The children of politicians and wealthy elites are our goal,” one message said.
“We need to launch our ‘Fu Dongmei plan’ and list out the names of politicians’ kids, then work with them one by one. After [KMT Legislator] Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡), our next goal should be to contact her younger brother Chang Jung-chi (張鎔麒). He works in the Taichung City Government. Who can we go through to reach him?” another text read.
Ko often compares himself to Mao, not even attempting to hide his infatuation with the former CCP dictator. Such idolization of an outlaw and devil of Mao’s stature belongs to the same category of grandiose, wishful self-musings of a confused “junior-high school student.” Under normal circumstances, with the further passage of time and added years under people’s belts, their confusion does not simply stop at the pupal stage — they metamorphose into something worse.
Fortunately, the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office has been hard at work investigating the four corruption cases and showing the true form of Taiwan’s domestic devils and demons. Perhaps more evidence would come to light. After all, the TPP is certain to come under even greater scrutiny, not just the KMT alone.
Teng Hon-yuan is an associate professor at Aletheia University.
Translated by Tim Smith
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017