Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
A FORMER LIEUTENANT GENERAL, Kao An-kuo, and five other associates were indicted earlier this month for efforts to form a paramilitary organization that would act to sabotage the Taiwanese government in wartime. The six suspects are currently being held incommunicado.
The group met with Chinese military intelligence over the course of numerous trips to China and received 9.62 million NT from the Chinese government. The group would have established military bases and attempted to overthrow the Taiwanese government in wartime.
It is unclear how extensive the plot was. 47 people were questioned and 26 locations raided as part of the ongoing investigation. Yet it is known that the organization was known as the “Republic of China Taiwan Military Government” and was engaged in efforts to win over former and current members of the military to its plot to act as a fifth column in wartime.
The phenomenon of former Taiwanese military personnel traveling to China, as part of which they meet with Chinese counterparts and express loyalty to the PRC, has long been an established one. Apart from that when former Taiwanese military personnel appear at public events in China, this is often seized upon for propaganda purposes, this phenomenon proves concerning because of the possibility of such individuals leaking military secrets.
It should go without saying that China is engaged in efforts to conduct espionage in Taiwan by luring in current military personnel. Similarly, there have been cases in which current military personnel are enticed to take oaths that they would surrender immediately in wartime, videos of which are used for propaganda.
To date, much discussion of Chinese fifth-column efforts that would occur in wartime has focused on pro-China organized crime groups that operate in Taiwan, such as the Bamboo Union and China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP). It is also noteworthy that when five New Party spokespersons were accused of attempting to form a spy ring in Taiwan by running an online news platform called Fire News, they were initially accused of attempting to form a paramilitary organization.
Member of the China Unification Promotion Party at a rally. Photo credit: KOKUYO/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
Nevertheless, it has been less common to hear of attempts to directly form such paramilitary organizations. This may be changing.
Earlier in January, seven members of a small party, the Fukang Alliance Party, were 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.
Though this in itself is not necessarily noteworthy, 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.
A report recently released by the National Security Bureau stated that the number of spy cases in Taiwan was on the rise and that efforts by Chinese United Front efforts to recruit active and former military personnel had also increased. Perhaps as Chinese threats directed at Taiwan have increased in severity and frequency, so, too, may the type of United Front efforts that take place.
It is to be seen what measures the Taiwanese government takes to curb such activity then. With calls by the government to create new courts to handle such cases, probably with the view that civilian courts have been too light on cases of espionage to date, it is probable that the KMT will dig its heels in against the matter, claiming that the government is infringing on political freedoms. This has already been seen with public statements by KMT legislators in defense of the CUPP after the Ministry of the Interior called for its dissolution, citing the organization’s links to pro-China organized crime.