On Feb. 28, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, or Nikkei, alleged that 90 percent of retired Taiwanese military officers had visited China and sold intelligence to the other side. Last week, The Economist magazine said the Taiwanese public appear to be undecided about how, and even whether, to defend themselves.
Nikkei’s figure of 90 percent might be exaggerated, if true at all, but even 10 percent would be far too much. On the other hand, the “true situation” reported by The Economist is no different from the Taiwanese public’s perception.
In October 2014, the US weekly Defense News ran a report on Chinese espionage in Taiwan, which said that improving relations between Taipei and Beijing had prompted Taiwan to gradually downsize its military. It said that many Taiwanese officers sought to profit from their knowledge of military secrets, including classified information about US equipment such as the E-2K Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft and the PAC-2 and PAC-3 air defense missile systems.
In 2020, army colonel Hsiang Te-en (向德恩) accepted money from China to write a “surrender pledge” stating that he would offer his services to China’s People’s Liberation Army if it attacked Taiwan. Since the 2011 case of army general Lo Hsien-che (羅賢哲), head of the Army Command Headquarters’ communications and electronic information office, several more cases of spying for China have come to light. Such traitorous crimes, whose perpetrators would have been given lengthy jail sentences or even executed in the days of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), are now lightly punished.
This situation must be incomprehensible to democracies like Japan and the US. Japanese media are well aware of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) hegemonic ambitions and would not want to spread CCP propaganda. Their attention to this problem, which concerns East Asian and Indo-Pacific security, should be seen as a well-intentioned warning.
The Economist’s report highlights a predicament that faces some democracies. Democratic Taiwan must protect freedom of speech, so it cannot ban any narrative, however strange it might be, unless it overtly slanders or threatens someone. However, the “red” and “blue” political media that openly advocate unification with communist China continue to wield considerable influence in Taiwan.
The words and actions of people like retired air force general Hsia Ying-chou (夏瀛洲) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator-at-large Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), a retired lieutenant general, have seriously harmed Taiwan’s sovereignty. The unification they call for means Taiwan’s integration into communist China.
Taiwan’s “quiet revolution” did not eliminate such behavior, which concerns Taiwan’s survival as a sovereign nation. If it continues to be protected by “freedom of speech,” the crisis foretold by The Economist would surely follow, and the international community would increasingly doubt Taiwan’s determination to defend itself.
Taiwan’s top priority should be to speedily amend laws related to national security, thoroughly investigate the criminal liability of CCP spies and strictly define the scope of “freedom of speech,” which should not include the freedom to eradicate Taiwan’s free and democratic system.
If unification advocates are so fond of dictatorship, they should feel free to move to China, but their freedom should not include helping the CCP take away the freedom of Taiwanese. Striking the right balance will be down to the wisdom of our legislators.
Jhang Shih-hsien is a former head of the National Palace Museum’s conservation department.
Translated by Julian Clegg
President William Lai (賴清德) attended a dinner held by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when representatives from the group visited Taiwan in October. In a speech at the event, Lai highlighted similarities in the geopolitical challenges faced by Israel and Taiwan, saying that the two countries “stand on the front line against authoritarianism.” Lai noted how Taiwan had “immediately condemned” the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and had provided humanitarian aid. Lai was heavily criticized from some quarters for standing with AIPAC and Israel. On Nov. 4, the Taipei Times published an opinion article (“Speak out on the
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
Eighty-seven percent of Taiwan’s energy supply this year came from burning fossil fuels, with more than 47 percent of that from gas-fired power generation. The figures attracted international attention since they were in October published in a Reuters report, which highlighted the fragility and structural challenges of Taiwan’s energy sector, accumulated through long-standing policy choices. The nation’s overreliance on natural gas is proving unstable and inadequate. The rising use of natural gas does not project an image of a Taiwan committed to a green energy transition; rather, it seems that Taiwan is attempting to patch up structural gaps in lieu of
News about expanding security cooperation between Israel and Taiwan, including the visits of Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) in September and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) this month, as well as growing ties in areas such as missile defense and cybersecurity, should not be viewed as isolated events. The emphasis on missile defense, including Taiwan’s newly introduced T-Dome project, is simply the most visible sign of a deeper trend that has been taking shape quietly over the past two to three years. Taipei is seeking to expand security and defense cooperation with Israel, something officials
RSS