Over the past few years, the number of people accused of “espionage for the People’s Republic of China” has risen sharply in Taiwan, according to data published by the island’s National Security Bureau.
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According to published statistics, at the end of 2024, the number of people accused of “espionage in favor of Beijing” was 64 people, while in 2023 this figure was 48 people.
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“This represents a sharp increase over 2021 and 2022,” the bureau said, noting that the number of people charged was 16 and 10 in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
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The bureau said, in part, that mainland China allegedly “used bandits to recruit retired military personnel to organize their former military comrades to form ‘sniper teams’ and to plan sniper missions against Taiwanese military units and foreign embassies.”
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In addition, the statement noted, the PRC allegedly “also uses retired military personnel to set up front companies, underground banks and casinos to entice or coerce active-duty military personnel into collecting sensitive military intelligence information, signing oaths to demonstrate loyalty, or ‘crossing over’ in military helicopters to China.”
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Earlier, the Taipei Times reported that prosecutors in Taiwan accused seven retired officers of the island’s armed forces of creating “killing squads” allegedly designed to help the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the event of an “invasion” by the PRC military.
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The situation around Taiwan worsened significantly after Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited the island in early August 2022. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit as US support for Taiwanese separatism and held large-scale military exercises.
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Official relations between the Chinese central government and its island province were interrupted in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in the civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to contact through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.
