A Chinese Ministry of State Security statement that it has “uncovered thousands of Taiwanese spying cases” is nothing more than Beijing’s latest attempt to intimidate Taiwanese, an expert on China said yesterday.
The ministry yesterday wrote on Sina Weibo that it was “resolute in carrying out the holy mandate prescribed by the central party to defend against and crush and punish efforts of espionage and infiltration against the Chinese homeland.”
It said it has “uncovered thousands of Taiwanese spying cases,” disrupted a spy network that had been established in China and arrested “Taiwanese independence leaders” such as Yang Chih-yuan (楊智淵) and others.
Photo: Screen grab from the Chinese ministry of State Security’s Sina Weibo page
The ministry did not give details about the cases or when they had been uncovered.
Hung Chin-fu (洪敬富), a political science professor at National Cheng Kung University, said he questioned the validity of the claims, as the Chinese ministry in January wrote on Sina Weibo that “national defense institutes has uncovered hundreds of Taiwanese spying cases and disrupted spy networks established by Taiwanese intelligence units.”
China’s “inflation” of Taiwanese spying cases demonstrates that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to portray itself as an administration under attack, within and from abroad, Hung said.
The CCP is also equating “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists” with national security risks, he added.
Beijing’s claims that “the [CCP’s] endeavors and major achievements over the past century provide the most solid foundation for strengthening our confidence in the path, theory, system and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics” is undermined, as its actions show that it does not have confidence or feel secure, he said.
Yang is a civilian and in Taiwan is not even considered a “Taiwan independence leader,” Hung said, adding that Yang’s arrest is an attempt by China to intimidate Taiwan.
Separately, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said Center for China and Globalization vice president Victor Gao’s (高志凱) recent comments during an al-Jazeera interview were preposterous and unworthy of comment.
Gao told broadcaster Mehdi Hasan that “after the reunification, everyone in Taiwan need to make a pledge whether they acknowledge there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China.”
Additional reporting by Huang Ching-hsuan
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi