Taiwan Slams China’s Claim of Foiling 1,000 Spy Cases
Taiwan has slammed China's claim to have uncovered 1,000 Taiwanese spy cases. Taipei says Beijing is either exaggerating or abusing its power to detain people like Yang Chih-yuan, who has been in Chinese detention for two years for what China calls Taiwanese independence activities.
Transcript
00:00Taiwan has slammed Chinese claims that it's found more than 1,000 cases of Taiwanese spying.
00:06China's security ministry says it's part of a campaign to strike hard against espionage.
00:11For more on these developments, Louise Watt joins us live from Taiwan's Mainland Affairs
00:15Council, the agency that deals with relations with China.
00:19Louise, what have they been saying?
00:21Rhys, here they're saying it's all about Chinese bureaucrats trying to fulfill a performance
00:29target and to do so they're either exaggerating or they're abusing their power.
00:35The deputy head of the Mainland Affairs Council, he told reporters here that the approach of
00:40the Chinese Communist Party hasn't changed in decades.
00:44High-ranking officials, they come up with targets and then it's left to the lower-ranking
00:48officials to fulfill them any way they can.
00:52So this claim of 1,000 spy cases, this goes back to earlier this week when China's top
00:59spy agency said that they'd broken up a large number of spy networks set up by Taiwanese
01:06in China.
01:08They said they'd uncovered more than 1,000 cases involving espionage and the theft of
01:14state secrets.
01:16They also reiterated that they will punish Taiwan independence forces and here they specifically
01:22mentioned the name of one individual, Yang Zhiyuan.
01:27He used to be a Taiwanese political activist and he's also the first Taiwanese to be arrested
01:34and prosecuted in China for the crime of secession.
01:39China's top spy agency, in their statement this week, they called him a Taiwan independence
01:45leader.
01:46Deputy Director Yang from the Mainland Affairs Council here, he says this is nonsense.
01:52He told reporters that before Yang's arrest, he was simply teaching Chinese chess in China
01:59and even participating in some competitions.
02:02In Yang's words, he said, it is quite absurd that someone like him can be labelled as a
02:08leading advocate of Taiwan independence just to achieve those Chinese goals.
02:14Now Yang is not the first Taiwanese to be prosecuted in China.
02:18There's been a series of Taiwanese who've been imprisoned in China on charges of espionage
02:24and subversion.
02:27And as for this idea of advocating for Taiwan independence, that's something that China
02:32has been trying to criminalize.
02:35And in fact, in June, they said that extreme cases of what they called a diehard Taiwan
02:41independence separatists, they could actually face the death penalty.
02:47So what does all this mean?
02:48Well, the Chinese and Taiwanese governments aren't talking to one another.
02:53And every time there's news about a Taiwanese being arrested in China or the threat of arrest,
02:59that puts off more Taiwanese from visiting there, hampering relations between China and
03:05Taiwan, not just on a political level, but on a personal level too.