Following warnings about increasing disinformation and cyberattacks from China, the National Security Bureau on Sunday released a report stating that the number of indictments relating to Chinese espionage has risen significantly in recent years, highlighting Beijing’s attempts to recruit Taiwanese military personnel as spies.
The report, titled “Analysis on the Infiltration Tactics Concerning China’s Espionage Cases,” noted that the number of Chinese spy cases prosecuted in Taiwan increased from three in 2021 to 15 last year, and the number of individuals indicted quadrupled, from 16 in 2021 to 64 last year.
Targets of Chinese infiltration included military units, government agencies and local associations, with active service members and veterans making the largest proportion. Last year, 15 military veterans and 28 active service members were prosecuted, accounting for 23 percent and 43 percent respectively of all Chinese espionage cases.
According to the bureau, besides aiming to develop organizations and collect military intelligence, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) asked the Taiwanese recruits to sign pledges declaring their loyalty and intent to surrender in the event of a Chinese invasion, and even to establish a “sniper team” targeting members of the military and foreign organizations.
The cases indicate the risk of China’s escalating multifaceted infiltration tactics to seduce Taiwanese soldiers through financial incentives and “united front” tactics. They also demonstrated that the weakening identification with and loyalty to the country among military members have become a non-negligible crisis.
The CCP has a long history of establishing spy rings in Taiwan to further its ambitions to take over the country. During the Chinese Civil War, the CCP deployed thousands of its agents to infiltrate the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its army, accelerating the KMT’s defeat and final retreat to Taiwan in 1949. The KMT then imposed martial law to suppress Taiwanese civilians and political dissidents, which it justified as fighting against the CCP and obstructing espionage operations during the following four decades of the White Terror era.
However, the situation in Taiwan today shows that the Chinese strategy to develop spy rings along nationalist lines, and recruit moles from the opposition’s ranks, continues to work well 70 years later. In 2017, the national security agency estimated there were more than 5,000 spies working for China in Taiwan.
Ironically, the KMT, which lost power in Taiwan, has turned into a party that is pro-China and obsequious to Beijing’s “one China” principle to undermine the sovereignty of the Republic of China in Taiwan, demonstrating a complete reversal of its values and national consciousness that has contributed further to confusion in national identity, and demoralization in society and the military. The party even repeatedly proposed to cut national defense budget to weaken Taiwan’s resistance to China.
Facing the escalating espionage cases in the military, Veteran Affairs Council Minister Yen De-fa (嚴德發) has called in all earnestness for military personnel to be firm in their patriotism and not engage in actions that would undermine Taiwan’s democracy and the public’s well-being, which were built on the blood and sacrifices of our forebears.
The government has established cross-department collaborative mechanisms, including penalty reforms, judicial training, and the enhancement of information security protocols and public awareness of counterintelligence and national security, to prevent infiltration by foreign forces and to increase the prosecution and conviction rates of spies.
Nonetheless, more effort is needed to enhance national identity among military personnel, and promote the values of democracy, honor and loyalty to safeguard the land and the people.
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