Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) on Saturday called for amendments to the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法) to make it illegal for military personnel to help Beijing disseminate propaganda.
Wang said such an amendment was necessary for cases like that of army Colonel Hsiang Te-en (向德恩), who was last month found guilty of accepting NT$560,000 from China in exchange for signing a “surrender agreement.” Such actions could demoralize the military, posing a threat to national security, Wang said.
He is correct to be concerned about the demoralizing effect of military personnel expressing their willingness to surrender to China, but it is unlikely that stricter punishments would deter them. Just like with espionage, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is able to succeed in its “united front” efforts when two things happen: if it can link up with a Taiwanese who is influential or has access to sensitive information, and if that individual accepts its money. Both conditions can be met when the individual travels to, or transfers in, China, Hong Kong or Macau, or when the individual is contacted by a proxy of the CCP in Taiwan or in a third country.
The CCP can most easily target Taiwanese traveling to third countries when their itinerary has been made public, when the CCP found out about it through a computer hack or when an agent of the CCP is privy to the individual’s travel plans (for example, if the individual has staff members who plan their travel, and at least one of their staff has been compromised).
These scenarios might seem far-fetched, but they are not. Australian Broadcasting Corporation in October reported that personal data about the defense heads of several countries had been stolen from the computer system of a hotel in Singapore when the officials stayed there during the Shangri-La Dialogue in June.
Tackling collaboration with the CCP relies on eliminating the possibility of the conditions for collusion being met. The first step would be to disallow individuals of interest to the CCP from traveling to, or transiting through, China. An amendment prohibiting those who work with key technologies from traveling there is to take effect next month, so it is clear that the government is working on the issue. Potential targets would also have to be monitored by the nation’s security officials at all times when traveling abroad to see who they are meeting, and their staffers in Taiwan would have to be vetted regularly.
Eliminating meetings with CCP proxies in Taiwan would be more challenging without contravening privacy rules, but that means intelligence officials must step up their game to seek out local proxies.
That would handle the issue of contact, but there is also the issue of money. Those with access to sensitive information or technologies should not be allowed to receive money transfers from China, and if any suspicious payment is detected, it should be scrutinized. Eliminating in-person payments by agents goes back to the issue of eliminating meetings with proxies.
Harsher punishments for collaborating with China is not a bad idea, but officials should seek to reduce the chances of such collaboration occurring in the first place, and reduce the motivation for doing so by making it hard for collaborators to get paid. The military should also implement psychological tests for officers above a certain rank. This would help identify individuals who might be swayed by Chinese agents, or who have unscrupulous intentions in seeking promotion within the military.
The regularity with which people of influence or who have access to information in Taiwan commit treasonous acts means the government is not getting to the root of the problem. Punitive legislation alone cannot solve it.
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