Beijing is using gang members and the Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) to infiltrate Taiwan, the Washington Post reported on Monday, detailing cases of espionage, bribery, election interference and information warfare linked to the party and its founder, Chang An-le (張安樂), also known as the “White Wolf.”
A months-long investigation by the Washington Post drew upon court records, corporate filings, social media posts and interviews with Taiwanese security and intelligence officials, CUPP members, the Bamboo Union (竹聯幫) gang and Chang himself.
Chang, “a self-confessed gang member turned political party leader,” and the CUPP support Taiwan’s unification with China, the article said, adding that Chang once told a rally that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family ... only with peaceful unification will Taiwan definitely be safe.”
Photo: Wang Ting-chuan, Taipei Times
Chang established the CUPP in 2004, which is estimated to have about 30,000 members, the article said, citing government data.
The report highlighted the party’s close ties to criminal activity and the Bamboo Union, and quoted experts as saying that it is involved in drug smuggling and online fraud, with Chang having previously served almost a decade in a US prison on drug-smuggling charges.
Authorities have seized nearly 200 firearms from CUPP and Bamboo Union members with ties to the party over the past five years, government data reportedly showed.
“To the government, their organization is a gang,” the article cited Deputy Minister of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) as saying.
“CUPP members frequently meet officials from central and local governments in China, as well as from the United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] agency charged with expanding Beijing’s global influence,” the Washington Post said.
Multiple CCP spy networks involving CUPP members have been discovered, while National Security Bureau data showed that the number of people charged with espionage in Taiwan increased more than 500 percent between 2022 and last year, the article said.
For example, CUPP spokesman Chang Meng-chung (張孟崇) and his wife, Hung Wen-ting (洪文婷), were this year indicted for accepting NT$74 million (US$2.43 million) from China to make radio and digital media propaganda to promote the Chinese government’s political agenda and influence the outcome of Taiwan’s elections.
China targets gang members for recruitment as intelligence assets, because it is difficult for them to find legal work and “they ask for very little, yet end up handing over highly classified information,” which they often obtain from Taiwanese military personnel, Paula Yeh (葉麗卿), director of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau’s national security division, said in the article.
The Ministry of the Interior has launched criminal investigations into at least 134 CUPP members, the report said, adding that the ministry has also begun the process of dissolving the party through a petition to the Constitutional Court, on the grounds that it is engaged in organized crime and is contravening national security and anti-foreign-influence laws.
The article quoted Chang as saying that he would simply reconstitute the group.
“They cannot dissolve our belief ... dissolve one party today, and we will form another one the next day,” he said.
Beijing has called any action to dissolve the party an attempt to “wantonly suppress and persecute patriotic unification forces on the island,” the article said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), currently visiting Poland, on Sunday witnessed the signing of a pact between Taiwan and Ukraine designed to provide aid for underprivileged Ukrainian children. Lin departed Taipei on Saturday and arrived in Poland on Sunday ahead of his scheduled speech at the Warsaw Security Forum. The memorandum of understanding was signed by Representative to Poland Jeff Liu (劉永健) and Tetiana Badylevych, deputy director of the Kyiv City Center for Social Services for Families, Children and Youth. The agreement aims to help underprivileged children in the Kyiv area, particularly those who lost their parents during the Russian invasion. The
Courses on native languages of Taiwan run by the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales’ Taiwan Studies Program in collaboration with multiple Taiwanese higher education institutions have attracted hundreds of sign-ups from Europe. Program director and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) lecturer Liu Chan-yueh (劉展岳) said the courses would be taught via an online learning platform commencing next month. The platform not only enables foreigners from across the globe to learn about Taiwan, but would also train Taiwanese language teachers to help foreigners learn Taiwan’s native languages as second foreign language, he said. A total of 28 courses would be available, including
LEAKED FILES: While China has the better equipment, Russia can offer combat experience, possibly helping speed up Beijing’s airborne program by 10 to 15 years Russia is selling military equipment and technology to China that could help Beijing prepare an airborne invasion of Taiwan, according to an analysis of leaked Russian documents by a UK-based defense and security forum. The Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI) analysis is based on about 800 pages of documents, including contracts and lists of equipment to be supplied by Moscow to Beijing, from the Black Moon hacktivist group, which previously published some of the documents online. It does not identify its members, but describes itself in a manifesto as opposed to governments that carry out aggressive foreign policy. The authors of the
WINDOW: Xi Jinping is likely to view upcoming interactions with Trump as the best opportunity to undermine ties and weaken confidence in the Taiwan-US relationship Attempts to exploit political transition in the US to create a “strategic gap” disregard Washington’s strategic policy on Taiwan and would not succeed, a Taiwanese national security official said yesterday. The remarks came as a response to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article on Saturday that reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) aims to pressure Washington into explicitly opposing Taiwanese independence, following renewed high-level US-China exchanges. The Taiwanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is unsurprising that China seizes every possible opportunity to undermine the mutual trust and cooperation between Taiwan, the US and their allies. “Beijing once believed
RSS