“Anyone wanting to betray the country could do so without having to go to China,” said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Shuai Hua-min (帥化民) on the weekend in defense of looser regulations for senior political, military and intelligence officials visiting China.
Quite right, but looser rules make it a hell of a lot easier to betray the country.
In the world of counterespionage, two principal dynamics are at play: intent and opportunity. Does an individual entrusted with classified information have the intent to pass on that material to a third party, and if so, what opportunities exist for that person to come into contact with the third party?
Shuai is partly right: Visiting a country does not in and of itself create intent. But allowing a greater number of officials involved in national security to visit China certainly creates opportunities, especially when the country being visited has an aggressive espionage apparatus.
Without going into the increased risk of accidental leak of information such visits would create, the fact is that, despite all the talk of rapprochement between Taiwan and China, Beijing continues to aim around 1,300 missiles in this direction and remains resolute in its quest to ensure superiority in the Taiwan Strait.
In other words, and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) rhetoric notwithstanding, China continues to believe that it is at war with Taiwan, and this belief is reflected in its intelligence-gathering operations.
The implication is that Chinese intelligence will continue to target Taiwanese officials — and others, including journalists — visiting the country. If more visits are held, more operations will be active. And once Taiwanese officials are physically in China, the opportunities for Chinese spies to extract information from them — through means such as deception, blackmail, financial incentives and even “honey traps” — will be much greater in number.
Human fallibility being what it is, officials with no intention of betraying their country can be cornered, manipulated and exploited by skilled intelligence agencies, often with the target oblivious to their efforts. Not every traitor is a Kim Philby — a person who switches side for ideological reasons. Most are not, in fact, and the reasons why are far more mundane: money, sex, love and vengeance.
The dangers involved in breaching the barrier that has minimized contact between Taiwan and Chinese officials for more than half a century are exacerbated by the influx of Chinese now allowed to visit Taiwan. In an espionage scenario, this could create a continuum of opportunities for contact between a traitor and his handlers. This would, in turn, obviate the proposed regulations, in which officials would need to ask permission before visiting China. Once contact has been made and an official has been ensnared, physical continuity could be maintained without the official having to make another visit to China.
Taiwan’s allies, who are not unaware of the inherent dangers of such contacts, could react to this development by becoming more reluctant to share intelligence products and sensitive technology with Taiwan lest they are passed on to China. Should the US, Taiwan’s principal ally on defense and intelligence, reach this conclusion, Taiwan could find itself denied signals and imagery intelligence, or even military components, which are critical to self-defense.
The risks are too high and the benefits of allowing such visits too low to justify a policy change. As long as China remains a military threat to Taiwan, and as long as China’s intelligence apparatus aggressively targets Taiwan and its allies, the buffer of the Taiwan Strait should be kept intact.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under