The country's top intelligence chief warned yesterday that China has plans to launch a campaign of economic warfare against Taiwan through a special fund it has established in a third country, which he identified as the US.
General Ting Yu-chou (
"We know of the existence of such a fund and the purposes for which it has been set up, but we have yet to find out how much money has been collected," Ting said.
"We have sent the relevant information to all government departments which might be affected by a campaign of economic warfare launched by China," he said.
"We will also provide the necessary assistance to these departments if they find any problems prior to an attack of that kind," he added.
Ting made the comments before the Legal Committee of the Legislative Yuan, as part of his response to inquiries from lawmakers over measures China might take to threaten the security of Taiwan.
The session was also attended by the National Security Council deputy secretary-general, Wu Tung-ming (
Ting assured lawmakers that his bureau and other agencies concerned have worked out countermeasures to any potential campaign of economic warfare, but he declined to reveal any details.
He also called on lawmakers to pay attention to a new security threat to Taiwan following the handover of Macau to China a few days ago.
"After China took over the rule of Macau, our bureau started to research the potential impact on Taiwan. We found that among the 450,000 residents of the former Portuguese colony, 120,000 have Portuguese pass-ports," Ting said.
"Of these, 100,000 are PRC nationals who have acquired Portuguese citizenship in the last decade," he said.
"These people could come to Taiwan and stay for two weeks without having to apply for visas. This could pose a great threat to the security of Taiwan since China might use these people to infiltrate Taiwan."
Aside from this potential threat, Ting also pointed out the seriousness of infiltration attempts by PRC spies through legal or illegal channels.
There are estimated to be around 50,000 to 70,000 PRC nationals currently in Taiwan, some 35,000 of whom are legal res-idents, Ting said.
These numbers would be much greater if illegal immigrants were taken into account, he added.
"There are around 1,000 illegal immigrants now awaiting repatriation. As for illegal immigrants who have entered the island undetected, the number could be at least three times more," Ting said.
In his last appearance at the legislature, in November, Ting told lawmakers that there were around 2,000 PRC spies in Taiwan and that they were being monitored by intelligence agents.
Despite the infiltrations, Ting assured the legislators that the information such spies could get would not be of the top-security sort, although he added that they are trying to get close to top-ranking government officials in order to gain access to highly classified data.
Meanwhile, Ting said China is preparing for war against Taiwan and that such preparations could be upgraded to operational levels in a short period of time.
However, "from now to the next March presidential election, there should be no chance for an armed conflict between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, if no particular event happens," Ting said.
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