China’s wild allegations of Taiwanese spying may be a direct response to Taiwan’s investigations of China’s own spy network.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/09/21
By: By Brian Hioe, 破土 New Bloom

Chinese spying efforts in Taiwan have been under closer scrutiny in past months. This can be observed in several incidents, including an official investigation into Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) and several other young spokespersons of the reunification-skewing New Party for efforts to establish a Chinese spying ring in Taiwan in collaboration with Chinese exchange student Zhou Hongxu, and what some suspect to be the Chinese financing of “White Wolf” Chang An-lo’s (張安樂) Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), though Chang denies this.

Credit: Reuters / TPGChinese student Zhou Hongxu is escorted by police as he arrives at the High Court for a hearing on suspicions of attempting to develop a spy network for China, in Taipei, March 26, 2018.
An Al-Jazeera documentary on Chinese influence in Taiwan was also released early this month, becoming a hotly discussed topic as a front-page article in some newspapers. The documentary revealed that the pro-unification Chinese Concentric Patriotic Association (CCPA) has ties within the Taipei city police, claims to be compiling a list of supporters of Taiwanese independence living in China, and is politically monitoring Chinese students studying in Taiwan in order to make sure that they do not step out of line.

In the wave of backlash against the CCPA after the release of the documentary, the CUPP publicly announced it would be distancing itself from the CCPA. This came despite the previous tight alliance of the two groups, with frequent interchanges between members.    [FULL  STORY]