Mainland Chinese spies are said to have infiltrated Taiwan’s army and the Taiwanese presidential palace, Russian media said, adding that Beijing hopes Taiwan’s defenders will not resist.
The Russian newspaper “The Independent” reported on December 22 that Beijing’s intelligence services have established an extensive spy network in Taiwan, in which senior officers of the Taiwanese army and even the former deputy defense minister have been involved. Some of these military personnel and officers have bowed to the power of mainland China, while others have been lured by generous donations.
Reuters reported that Beijing has even infiltrated the security team assigned to protect Tsai Ing-wen, including a retired presidential security officer and an active-duty military police lieutenant colonel responsible for protecting the president. All of these officers were sentenced this year for allegedly leaking sensitive information about Tsai’s security to mainland intelligence agencies.
The leaked sensitive information included a hand-drawn organizational chart of the secret service center, and the two men were also accused of leaking the names, positions and work phone numbers of senior security personnel at the presidential palace and Tsai’s central Taipei residence, according to the report.
According to the report, the main target of Chinese intelligence is the Taiwanese armed forces. The mission is to undermine their morale and obtain defense plans and information about the latest weapons. The fighters on the stealth front also exploited the patriotism of the islanders, reminding them of the humiliations China has suffered in the past and last century, as well as its achievements today, a tactic that played an important role during the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
Richard Moore, head of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership is increasingly inclined to take bold and decisive action based on national security interests, according to the report. Meanwhile, MI6’s top priority is not Russia, but China.
In an interview with The Independent, Russian intelligence veteran Mikhail Lyubimov noted that the U.K. would behave even more aggressively if China became the main enemy of the U.S., especially given that the U.K. has left the European Union. And mainland China’s intelligence apparatus is absolutely superb, and Chinese people, wherever they live, feel completely at ease with intelligence officers from mainland China.