China’s Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are expanding their infiltration in Taiwan, targeting elites and political parties, a former US intelligence analyst said in a seminar discussing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ideological and cyber warfare yesterday.
The seminar, which was hosted by the Global Taiwan Institute (GTI) in Washington, was titled “Enhancing US-Taiwan Cooperation in Countering the CCP’s Ideological Work and Political Welfare” and featured five panelists who are US experts on Asia-Pacific security.
The panel compiled the findings of five reports written for the GTI on the CCP’s political, economic and ideological warfare on Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
Peter Mattis, former analyst for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said China has displayed a “persistent focus” on “military police command and therefore the presidential security camp,” adding that the PLA has learned from Ukraine the “importance of a national leader in wartime.”
It is “a very clear and deliberate effort to make sure that [the PLA] have real-time awareness of the president’s security detail,” and are testing that awareness, he added.
Mattis, president of the Jamestown Foundation, a non-partisan defense policy think tank, spoke on issues including “United Front” tactics, counterintelligence measures, building digital resilience and setting clear boundaries and consequences for those who undermine Taiwan’s integrity.
The seminar featured keynote speaker Mike Studeman, former Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and national security fellow at MITRE Corp, an independent advisory on national security.
“The enemy and cooptees who help the enemy are fully inside Taiwan and Taiwan is riddled, essentially, with a counterintelligence and security problem,” Studeman said in his opening remarks.
“United front” tactics are an explicit tool of political warfare, as stated by Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and reiterated by Xi Jinping’s (習近平) massive reform of the “united front” system in 2015, Mattis said.
This is achieved through local government exchanges and cultural exchanges to promote the idea of “Chineseness,” achieved by targeting the elite and party level and through actors in Taiwan who are “very clearly working on Beijing’s behalf,” he said.
Taiwan faces an ongoing issue of politicians from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) being recruited for espionage by the CCP, Mattis said.
“Anyone can be a victim... it doesn’t matter where they come from,” he said, adding that the CCP’s political warfare mentality is that “it doesn’t matter what kind of spy [it is], as long as it hurts Taiwan, it's a good spy.”
Democracies must have transparency, debate and conversation, he said.
As in the US and Australia, Taiwan must set clear boundaries and consequences on behavior that undermines Taiwan and its integrity, and although the country has the legal infrastructure to do so, rulemaking authorities have often fallen short on this front, he said.
Regarding government officials, Mattis said that security clearances, including routine and ongoing vetting, is important to set a standard of behavior and define what is “not acceptable behavior to work in government... the presidential palace or the presidential security crew.”
Government bodies including the Ministry of Digital Affairs should be covered by the same “national security mentality” as the military, he added.
He said it is “a good sign to see the expulsion of people that are promoting CCP propaganda,” presumably referring to the recent deportation of three female Chinese residents from Taiwan for pro-unification social media content.
Speaking on cyber security, Mattis said that there needs to be a greater awareness in Taiwan of which threats have already entered Taiwan’s digital space, including local databases such as hospitals and national insurance.
“Many of the same actors that we have identified in US critical infrastructure... are active in Taiwan’s cyber domain,” he added.
In light of the CCP’s ideological and cyber warfare on Taiwan, Taiwan should set clear expectations on the conduct of government officials and expand security clearances across government bodies, Mattis said.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
RSS