Taiwan’s China Spy Problem: The Chang Chih-hsin Case

Retired navy commander Chang Chih-hsin

Even with warming relations across the Taiwan Strait, Chinese intelligence collection against the island it regards as its own remains as aggressive as ever 

As relations between Taipei and Beijing continue to improve following the re-election of Taiwan’s President, Ma Ying-jeou, to a second term in January, China’s intelligence collection against the island it claims as its own remains as aggressive as ever, with major spy cases grabbing the headlines about once every six months.

It’s been less than two years since Taiwan was hit by the worst spying case in half a century, in which Army general Lo Hsien-che was arrested for passing classified military information to Chinese intelligence officers since 2004, in return for payment. In July of the same year, Lo was sentenced to life in prison, but it was hard to contain the damage, especially as doubts remained over how much access he had to the nation’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems, which Taiwan has been modernizing with U.S. assistance for well over a decade [...]

Now Taiwan’s military is once again on damage control mode, with reports emerging on October 29 that commander Chang Chih-hsin, a retired naval officer, had been arrested on suspicion that he had collected classified information on behalf of China.

My article, published today in The Diplomat, continues here.