by Brian Hioe

語言:
English
Photo Credit: Jirka Matousek/WikiCommons/CC BY 2.0

THE MAINLAND AFFAIRS COUNCIL (MAC) has proposed the creation of new military courts to deal with espionage and national security cases. In particular, the MAC has argued that this is necessary to keep pace with the times, given the rising threats directed toward Taiwan, in which Chinese infiltration is on the rise.

The National Security Bureau (NSB) recently released a report on Chinese infiltration tactics toward Taiwan. In the report, the NSB highlighted Chinese recruitment of veterans and active military personnel.

Such recruitment of individuals associated with the military has taken place in the past. Concerns have been raised about such individuals passing on military secrets to China, or participating in Chinese propaganda initiatives aimed at creating a lack of faith in the ability of the military to stand up to a Chinese invasion. For example, military personnel might film videos swearing to immediately surrender in the event of war, to create the perception that the Taiwanese military could not and would not stand up to the Chinese military in wartime.

Yet the report raised the possibility of paramilitary groups organized by China, to act as a fifth column to sabotage Taiwan internally in wartime. This has been a less discussed possibility until recent times. The report cited that China might reach out to military personnel facing financial difficulties and offer them loans or gather incriminating information on military personnel and threaten to publicize such information in order to coerce them into cooperation.

A recent incident has flagged this danger, with seven members of a small party, the Fukang Alliance Party, indicted on espionage charges. These seven members are all veterans.

The Fukang Alliance Party had unsuccessfully attempted to field four candidates, who were apparently unaware of the party’s ties to China, in elections. Reportedly, the party had received funding from the Chinese government to run these candidates. This, too, was not unheard of in Taiwanese politics, with pan-Blue candidates receiving Chinese government funding through hard-to-regulate money transfers on Chinese platforms such as WeChat, or even through cryptocurrency, as part of electoral bids.

The Mainland Affairs Council. Photo credit: 美國之音 楊明/Public Domain

But, more concerning, members of the Fukang Alliance Party photographed military installations and passed on GPS coordinates of military installations to the Chinese government. Sites photographed included the Alishan Radar Station, as well as a number of places in Pingtung, including the Baoli and Renshou Camps of the Joint Operations Training Base Command and the Jialutang Beach. The American Institute in Taiwan, the US de facto representative office in Taiwan in lieu of formal diplomatic relations, was also photographed. The Fukang Alliance Party also sought to compile a list of general officers and sought to recruit new members from military intelligence.

The Judicial Yuan has stressed that efforts are under way to clarify current legal regulations to deal with security threats, as well as that inter-governmental efforts at cooperation are ongoing to deal with the issue, involving stakeholders such as the Coast Guard, military intelligence, and the NSB. But the MAC may view the current processes as insufficient, having brought up cases in which judges had an overly rigid interpretation of the law when dealing with espionage cases. The MAC has emphasized that such courts would only be used for very special cases, even as it has also called for more security processes to be implemented for government officials traveling to China, requiring them to provide information on the purpose of their travel to China.

This is not the first time in the last decade that the possibility of Chinese United Front efforts seeking to organize a paramilitary fifth column in Taiwan has been highlighted. When a group of New Party youth spokespersons who ran an online media outlet called Fire News were criticized as acting to recruit in the aims of building a spy network, they were initially accused of seeking to organize not a spy ring, but a paramilitary group. However, charges against the New Party spokespersons were eventually thrown out over lack of evidence.

Yet with the rise in the severity of Chinese threats directed toward Taiwan, this danger is increasingly discussed, serving as a plot point in depictions of a potential invasion of Taiwan such as the drama Zero Day.

But, one generally expects the pan-Blue camp to try and take a stand against military courts, citing freedoms of political expression, even if the KMT operated similarly courts during authoritarian ties. Even if it was the former authoritarian party in Taiwan, the KMT has broadly sought to use freedom of speech concerns to block measures for wartime in Taiwan in recent times, including targeting civil defense legislation or provisions on declaring martial law. So, then, has the KMT also taken issue with calls by the Ministry of the Interior to dissolve the Chinese Unification Promotion Party and other political parties with links to or which serve as fronts for pro-unification organized crime groups.

In this sense, the KMT is likely to seek to defend fifth column efforts. This has already been observed, with the KMT lashing out at individuals who have shed light on Chinese United Front efforts directed at Taiwan, such as a recent two-part documentary released by YouTuber Pa Chiung, accusing Chiung of simply acting at the behest of the DPP.

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