Taiwan’s Treason Problem

Two of the accused arrive for court

Prosecutors in Taiwan on Thursday indicted three former legislative aides for trying to access President Tsai Ing-wen's medical records for China's state security police.

Chen Wei-jen, Lee Yi-hsien, and Lin Yung-ta, all former aides at the democratic island's Legislative Yuan, have been charged with spying and developing a spy network for China. All three stand accused of trying to collect and pass on sensitive government information to China's ministry of state security between 2012 and 2016.

Prosecutors said on Thursday that both Chen and Lin had traveled to Macau in 2012, where they met with a Chinese intelligence officer, who induced them in exchange for financial gain.

Chen and Lin had previously worked for Kuomintang (KMT) lawmaker Chen Shu-hui. Lee was a journalist working in China’s Guangdong province when recruited. He went on to work as assistant to then KMT lawmaker Chang Li-shan.

Beijing wanted them to access information on President Tsai's medical records, and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)'s forthcoming election campaign. According to prosecutors, the three agents failed to get the desired information.

Tsai of relief

Domestic traitors are a serious problem in Taiwan.

China has already had success in turning members of Taiwan’s military. The highest-level member of the military to be convicted of espionage is former one-star general Lo Hsien-che, who was initially lured into a “honey trap” while stationed in Thailand, and then received payment in exchange for state secrets.

In 2015 four retired Taiwanese military officers and another Taiwanese citizen were indicted for espionage and leaking state secrets, including information about Taiwanese military aircraft and radar systems. Chinese spies paid the men with cash and trips to Southeast Asia.

High-ranking government officials have also been convicted of spying for China. In 2010, a former official in Taiwan’s presidential office was convicted of passing state secrets to China, and sentenced to three years in prison.

The treason problem reflects the political split on the island.

While the KMT are the heirs of Chiang Kai-shek’s political movement that fled to Taipei in 1949 after they were beaten in China’s civil war by the communist army of Mao Zedong, they have morphed into an establishment business party. They have accepted China will not revert to their rule, as Chiang dreamed. And trade is proximity; getting rich means working with the Chinese Communist Party.

This lead to a landmark agreement with Beijing known as the “1992 consensus.” As long as both Beijing and Taipei acknowledge that “there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China” — whether “China” means the Republic of China or the People’s Republic of China — the “status quo” between the two sides of the strait could be maintained.

Current President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic People’s Party rejects the 1992 consensus — mainly because Chinese President Xi Jinping now says it should lead to a Hong Kong-like formula of “One country, two systems.” What has happened in Hong Kong under Xi underscores the problem of giving the Chinese Communist Party any kind of a foot in the door.

The DPP is a left-wing party, many of whom fought for democracy against Chiang’s KMT when it ran Taiwan as a military dictatorship. About 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned or executed for showing real or perceived opposition to the KMT during the period of 'white terror' between 1949 and 1987. It’s also worth noting that the KMT is still dominated by the heirs of those who came from Mainland China with Chiang, even though they only account for 14% of the population.

Even so, this political split in Taiwan reflects the schism tearing the West apart: China can make corrupt local elites rich, through bribes or business opportunity. These local elites will gladly sell out their own people for China’s cash.

Of course in Taiwan, the stakes are much higher than everywhere else. To use the Nazi analogy: Taiwan is to China as Austria was to Hitler’s Germany — the first domino to fall to madness and tyranny. Chinese stooges and collaborators are an existential threat.