Tue, Feb 06, 2024 page1

• Chinese Communist Party spies everywhere: author

  ESPIONAGE: Florence Mo Han Aw said that Taiwanese have been in their comfort zone too long, while China aims to build a network of underground CCP members

  • Staff writer, with CNA
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  Underground Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members are in all corners of Taiwan, a former member revealed in a new book.

  At the launch of The Memoirs of a Hong Kong’s Underground CPC (覺醒的道路:前中共香港地下黨員梁慕嫻回憶錄) in Vancouver on Sunday, Canada-based writer Florence Mo Han Aw (梁慕嫻) shared her journey from being a loyal party member to recognizing the truth about the CCP.

  Aw, 85, was born in Hong Kong and joined the Communist Youth League of China as a high-school student after being recruited by her teacher in 1955.

  

  Canada-based writer Florence Mo Han Aw, seated, poses with guests at her book launch in Vancouver on Sunday.

  Photo: CNA

  She then became an underground CCP member and served as chair of the Hok Yau Dancing Club from 1962 to 1974, where she was in charge of student-related affairs.

  During the 1967 Hong Kong riots, she was in charge of organizing student “struggle committees” and rallies to recruit underground party members.

  She wrote that the mysterious death of then-Chinese vice premier Lin Biao (林彪) in a plane crash in Mongolia on Sept. 13, 1971, shook her faith in the party.

  When Aw’s mother-in-law, who was also a CCP member, became seriously ill in Vancouver, her husband was unable to obtain approval from the party to visit her.

  Her husband flew to Vancouver without permission, but was labeled a traitor after returning to Hong Kong, which made her decide to move to Canada and break away from the CCP.

  Since moving to North America in the 1970s, Aw has continued to closely follow the situation in Hong Kong, which has made her worry about the fate of Taiwan.

  In a chapter discussing Beijing’s infiltration tactics against Taiwan, she wrote that “underground CCP members are active all over the world.”

  “Taiwan is the most important place, so many of them have been planted there long ago,” she said.

  China would first ensure it has people inside and outside of Taiwan working together before invading, she said.

  “If these espionage activities are cut off and everyone unites against the CCP, naturally it would not dare to act rashly,” she said.

  Taiwanese have been in their comfort zone for a long time, she said, warning against treating the situation lightly.

  The CCP is good at propaganda and disguising it, and Beijing only shows goodwill with the sole purpose of annexing Taiwan, she said.

  An English translation of the book, which is published by Taiwan’s Xin-rui Creative (新銳文創) under Showwe (秀威) Information Co Ltd, is to be published soon.

  Aw expressed gratefulness for Taiwan’s freedom of speech, which made the book’s publication possible.

  Chiu Chien-yi (邱建義), an official at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vancouver, said at the book launch that “Taiwan’s smooth completion of its presidential election represents another victory for free and democratic Taiwan.”

  China’s unilateral decision to change the M503 flight route last week “was a coercive and intimidating act,” Chiu said, adding that Taiwanese were unafraid and would not back down.

  Other attendees at the book launch, including Hong Kong Parliament Electoral Organizing Committee chairman Victor Ho (何良懋), former Hong Kong Democratic Party adviser Simon Lau (劉細良) and former Hong Kong district councilor Mak Hoi-wah (麥海華), praised Taiwan as a “treasured land of democracy in the world.”
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