Editorial: The unmaking of a spy

The plan by a former secret agent of the Military Affairs Bureau, Chang Chih-peng (張志鵬), to turn himself into the Chinese authorities unless the Taiwan government paid him NT$100 million, has been headline news. Stories of this sort will make the legendary World War II secret agent "Chang-chiang No. 1" (長江一號) roll over in his grave and James Bond weep. Chang's behavior makes a mockery of the achievements of all secret agents who have given their lives for their countries.

Just what went wrong? What would drive a septuagenarian to make such a fool of himself? Certainly, the government must make more efforts to take care of if former agents in their later years. But it is even more imperative for the government to pay attention to factional feuds within its intelligence community. Two factors played an important role in the Chang saga -- grossly inappropriate meddling by People First Party Legislators Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) and Roy Chou (周錫瑋), and an apparent crisis of loyalty among some elderly spies now that the KMT is no longer in power.

The last time that Chang made headlines was when he tried to sue former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) last year for leaking confidential information during the 1996 missile crisis by saying that the missiles fired by China ahead of the 1996 presidential election did not have warheads. Chang claims that that titbit of information triggered a spy-hunt in China that led to the capture and later the execution of PLA Major General Liu Liankun (劉連昆). Lee Ching-hua accompanied Chang the day he launched the lawsuit, while Chou attended the press conference that was called to air the allegation.

Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense should know how ludicrous Chang's allegations are. It is common knowledge in the military that unarmed missiles are usually used for long-range missile tests. The aim is to test the accuracy of the missile, so why waste a warhead. Taiwan's military was able to verify the lack of a warhead by retrieving the missiles used in the first round of China's tests. Therefore, Beijing had no reason to suspect the information came from intelligence work. Lee also had every right as president to try to calm a nation made nervous by the missile tests and Beijing's bellicose posturing. In addition, a soon-to-be-released book by Lai Changxiang (賴昌星), a former Xiamen businessman currently wanted by China, reveals that General Liu was captured because Lai helped Beijing arrest Taiwan's Military Affairs Bureau secret agent Yeh Ping-nan (葉炳南) in Hong Kong.

Had legislators Lee and Chou not been more interested in grabbing headlines and scoring political points, they might have done more to help Chang. Instead, they fanned his rage by pointing the finger at Lee. Chang became convinced that Lee, the government and the country had wronged him. His feelings of grievance boiled over and led to his attempted defection.

Adding to Chang's confusion is the changing nature of politics in Taiwan. To Chang and many other intelligence agents, the KMT and the country are inseparable. The end of KMT rule means the end of this country to them. The patriotism that motivated their willingness to sacrifice their lives for their country now seems pointless. To make things worse, many senior KMT leaders and other politicians now seem to love and embrace the very "communist bandits" they once decried as evil.