Opinion: What India Can Learn From Taiwan Espionage Crisis

China has harnessed criminals, temples and online platforms to lure veterans and active service members into spying by using various means, including money, according to local media. Representational image.

Source : X/mna_roc

Taiwanese media is replete with reports on internal threats to its security. Its own people are spying for China, and it’s turning into a major concern for the Taipei administration. Taiwan’s situation has important lessons for India as it too faces the China challenge on its border and its immediate neighbourhood. 

What was a political, cultural and educational exchange propelled by a shared language has gradually turned into an easy conduit for Chinese espionage inside Taiwan. Beijing has increasingly found new and innovative ways of infiltrating Taiwanese society. 

It has harnessed criminals, temples and online platforms to lure veterans and active service members into spying by using various means, including money, political propaganda and psychological coercion, according to Taipei Times. 

Last year, the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office indicted 10 people, including the head of a temple in New Taipei who had connections with a criminal gang in Taiwan. The temple head used her religious and criminal links to identify and induct veteran and active service people into spying.

What was worse, those recruited as spies were supposed to hand over their Taiwanese national identity cards and create videos promising to surrender in the event of a war. They were asked to do all this wearing military uniforms with a Chinese flag in hand.

Also notable is the case of spies recruited through online gaming platforms, and informal banks that offer loans to those in financial difficulties and promise to wipe their debt in return for information, according to latest reports. 

Last week, Taiwan prosecuted a coast guard corporal for selling classified material about Taiwan’s shoreline defence to a Chinese national for NT$70,000 (US$2,122). 

According to Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, 64 people were prosecuted in Taiwan last year on espionage-related charges, compared to 43 in 2023 and 10 in 2022. The 64 included 28 active service members and 15 veterans. 

These reports reminded me of what an analyst recently shared during an interview, “China will not militarily attack Taiwan. They’ll increasingly infiltrate them.”

Similar Espionage In India’s Neighbourhood

India faces a persistent threat from China not only on its long disputed borders along Xinjiang and Tibet but also on account of Chinese espionage and covert warfare from its borders with other neighbours. 

Indian media are replete with reports of Nepal increasingly turning into a route for Chinese espionage. With many Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in India’s immediate neighbourhood, hasn’t the threat of Chinese espionage become greater?

India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) is increasingly busting scams involving Chinese loan apps that were being promoted on Indian social media with the promise of easy loans. In January, the ED arrested four people from Tamil Nadu for their links to a fraudulent Chinese loan app. The shell companies associated with this app had transferred Rs 170 crore to the Chinese operators through Singapore in 2023, according to a New Indian Express Report.

While the Chinese loan apps are being dealt with as cases of cyber fraud, shouldn’t they be analysed as the first rung to greater espionage operations? How far away are these fraudulent loan apps from the definition of psychological coercion?

There have been many reports of Indians committing suicide after being entangled in debt traps by these loan apps. Aren’t these victims examples of psychological manipulation? Aren’t other victims of such cyber fraud further vulnerable to coercion, just like in Taiwan, where cases have emerged of people being blackmailed into spying.

After the bloody conflict of Galwan, India had banned many Chinese apps. However, media reports indicate that many of them are making a comeback. Shouldn’t the Indian government reflect once again about their threat to India’s national security? 

The writer is a MOFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Taiwan 2025 Fellow from India. Media and journalism, Global South geopolitics, sustainability and leadership are her areas of interest.

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