Analysis: The Current State of the China-Taiwan Spy War
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last week I spoke about the current state of the espionage war between China and Taiwan with Tim Daiss, a Southeast Asia-based American journalist who has been covering the Asia-Pacific region for over a decade. Our discussion formed the basis of a comprehensive piece on the subject, published in British newspaper The Independent, in two parts (part one and part two). I told Daiss that the Ministry of State Security —China’s primary national intelligence agency— is not known for its technological prowess. However, the sheer size of Beijing’s intelligence apparatus is proving a good match for the more advanced automated systems used by its less populous regional rivals, including Taiwan. When it comes to traditional human intelligence, the Chinese have been known to employ time-tested methods such as sexual entrapment or blackmail, as was confirmed most recently in the case of Taiwanese Major-General Lo Hsien-che. Lo, who headed the Taiwanese military’s Office of Communications and Information, was convicted of sharing classified top-secret information with a female Chinese operative in her early 30s, who held an Australian passport. During his trial, which marked the culmination of Taiwan’s biggest spy scandal in over half a century, Lo admitted that the Chinese female spy “cajoled him with sex and money”. In addition to honey-trap techniques, Chinese spies collect intelligence by way of bribery, as do many of their foreign colleagues. In the case of China, however, a notable change in recent years has been the accumulation of unprecedented amounts of foreign currency, which make it easier for Chinese intelligence operatives to entice foreign assets, such as disgruntled or near-bankrupt state employees, to sell classified data.
Last week I spoke about the current state of the espionage war between China and Taiwan with Tim Daiss, a Southeast Asia-based American journalist who has been covering the Asia-Pacific region for over a decade. Our discussion formed the basis of a comprehensive piece on the subject, published in British newspaper The Independent, in two parts (part one and part two). I told Daiss that the Ministry of State Security —China’s primary national intelligence agency— is not known for its technological prowess. However, the sheer size of Beijing’s intelligence apparatus is proving a good match for the more advanced automated systems used by its less populous regional rivals, including Taiwan. When it comes to traditional human intelligence, the Chinese have been known to employ time-tested methods such as sexual entrapment or blackmail, as was confirmed most recently in the case of Taiwanese Major-General Lo Hsien-che. Lo, who headed the Taiwanese military’s Office of Communications and Information, was convicted of sharing classified top-secret information with a female Chinese operative in her early 30s, who held an Australian passport. During his trial, which marked the culmination of Taiwan’s biggest spy scandal in over half a century, Lo admitted that the Chinese female spy “cajoled him with sex and money”. In addition to honey-trap techniques, Chinese spies collect intelligence by way of bribery, as do many of their foreign colleagues. In the case of China, however, a notable change in recent years has been the accumulation of unprecedented amounts of foreign currency, which make it easier for Chinese intelligence operatives to entice foreign assets, such as disgruntled or near-bankrupt state employees, to sell classified data.
In the case of Taiwan, China’s primary
intelligence targets are weapons systems, especially those originating
in the United States. The island-nation possesses export-versions of
some of America’s most advanced weaponry, and it is far easier for
Beijing to access such weapons in Taiwan than on US soil. Taiwan is both
geographically and culturally familiar to Chinese intelligence
operatives, who do not have to try too hard to blend into Taiwanese
society. I told The Independent that, based on publicly available
information about recent espionage cases, it would be safe to assume
that Chinese intelligence has gained access to substantial classified
information on some of Taiwan’s most advanced US-made defense systems.
These include the Lockheed Martin/Raytheon-built Patriot missile defense
system deployed on the island, as well as the Po Shen command and
control system, which is designed to facilitate critical battlefield
communications between Taiwan’s navy, army and air force.
I argue in the interview with the
London-based paper that China’s success in penetrating Taiwan’s defense
systems is having a significant impact on bilateral relations between
Washington and Taipei. On the one hand, the United States is committed
on preserving its alliance with Taiwan, for both geostrategic and
symbolic purposes. But, on the other hand, American defense planners are
weary of the damage caused to US military strategy by the exposure of
some of Washington’s most coveted weapons systems to Chinese
intelligence by way of Taiwan. As I told Daiss, while nobody at the US
Pentagon or State Department would admit it publicly, “many in
Washington are increasingly hesitant to supply Taiwan with sensitive
military technology because they fear penetration by the Chinese”.
At the end of the interview, I cautioned
that it would be a mistake to view the United States and Taiwan as
simply passive receptors of Chinese intelligence activities. The
increasing ease of travel and communication between Taiwan and the
Chinese mainland in recent years has allowed Taiwan’s military and
civilian intelligence agencies to collect far more intelligence
on China than ever before. Their activities range from cyberespionage
and offensive counterintelligence to sexual entrapment (some intelNews
readers may recall the 2006 case of Tong Daning, an economist in China’s
Social Security Department, who was executed in 2006 for sharing
classified Chinese economic data with his mistress; she later turned out
to have been a spy for Taipei).
Ultimately, however, it is near
impossible for Taiwan to match the size of China’s spy network, even
with American assistance. As Daiss writes, “twenty-four million versus
1.3 billion just doesn’t seem like a fair fight”. And, he adds, “how all
of this will unfold as China and Taiwan continue to forge relations in
the near future is anybody’s guess”.
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