China is intensifying its psychological warfare against Taiwan and appears to be using tourism as a means to collect intelligence in Taiwan, information obtained by the Taipei Times shows.
Reports on various Chinese military Web sites dating back to March last year reveal that the Nanjing Military Region’s General Political Department’s (GPD) 311 Base in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, has been turned into a center of political warfare operations against Taiwan.
Reorganization efforts have seen China’s Voice of the Straits radio, formerly known as the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Fujian frontline broadcasting station, incorporated into the 311 Base.
The station, a service launched in the 1950s to broadcast propaganda at Taiwan, introduced online broadcasting in April 2000.
The move was part of an expansion of psychological warfare from the radio station to a variety of fields, including publishing and other areas of contact with Taiwan, making the 311 Base “the cornerstone of the PLA’s psychological warfare against Taiwan,” the reports said.
Included in those other “areas of contact” was tourism, the reports said, adding that the 311 Base and its subsidiaries would make “further investments,” without specifying what those were.
News of the reorganization coincided with rapid growth last year in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan.
Among the functions of the GPD are ideological education, security, discipline, propaganda and psychological work among active service personnel. Two subunits — liaison and security — are of particular interest.
The Liaison Department, whose primary target is Taiwan, is responsible for influencing the political opinions and attitudes of enemy personnel, as well as collecting and analyzing intelligence on social, political and demographic situations in target countries. It also directs training on psychological warfare.
The role of the Security Department, among others, is directing security and counterintelligence operations.
Chinese must obtain permission from the Chinese government to visit Taiwan. Those who intend to travel independently must apply to the Ministry of Public Security through a Chinese tour organizer.
Security analysts have long said that this process presents Chinese authorities with opportunities to “direct” Chinese tourists. It is also believed that Chinese intelligence operatives have been using tourism as cover to undertake operations in Taiwan.
Since President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration opened the country to Chinese tourism, a number of incidents involving Chinese have raised concerns about national security. In May 2009, Ma Zhongfei (馬中飛) was arrested on charges of spying at a military facility in Taipei after he was caught taking pictures near a restricted area.
Less well known is that that facility houses the Information and Communication Security Technology center, which plays a crucial coordination role in ensuring information security for all government agencies.
Asked for comment, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director General David Hsieh (謝謂君) said he had not heard of such things and did not want to speculate on the motives of Chinese visitors.
“When we allowed Chinese to travel in Taiwan, the organizations in charge of national security evaluated some of the issues that this might create,” he said, adding that the bureau only wanted to focus on tourism.
Travel permit applications by Chinese tourists are reviewed by the National Immigration Agency, he said.
Chinese who are part of a tour group must abide by the schedules arranged by Taiwanese travel agents and are unlikely to engage in non-tourism activities, Hsieh said.
As for free independent travelers, Hsieh said different government agencies should have their own security measures, but should not single out Chinese tourists.
Some travel agents told the Taipei Times they had heard that Chinese “secret service” agents were joining tour groups to monitor the movement of Chinese tourists in Taiwan and report on those who engaged in unusual activities.
However, they said they had yet to meet one in person or at least were unaware if they had done so.
About 1.6 million Chinese tourists visited Taiwan last year, a number that is expected to reach 2.1 million this year.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS