EDITORIAL: Aide’s escape case a wake-up call

After more than seven weeks on the run, Chang Chun-chieh (張俊傑), the former legislative office director of independent indigenous Legislator May Chin (高金素梅), allegedly fled Taiwan on a fishing boat from Keelung’s Jhengbin Fishing Harbor (正濱漁港) on Oct. 28. Chang’s escape after breaching his electronic monitor on Sept. 6 while out on NT$10 million (US$304,053) bail has drawn scrutiny to electronic monitoring systems and coastal inspections, and prompted investigations into possible security lapses.

Chin, Chang and 22 others were in June indicted on charges of fraudulently collecting more than NT$7.87 million in legislative aide salaries and subsidies. Chin and Chang were also charged over the alleged unauthorized importation of COVID-19 rapid test kits during the pandemic. Nine days after Chang’s suspected departure by sea, the High Prosecutors’ Office indicted him, Chin and two other aides, Chen Chih-huang (陳智葟) and Lin Yi-chun (林怡君), under the National Security Act (國家安全法) and Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), over allegations that between 2005 and 2016, they participated in a scheme to develop an organization on behalf of Chinese government agencies that would also support Chin’s legislative activities and outreach to indigenous community groups.

Lin allegedly acted as an intermediary for Chin and Chang, traveling between Taiwan and China to receive and relay instructions from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, prosecutors said. Chang allegedly accepted Chinese money intended to fund infrastructure projects for indigenous communities, they said. He allegedly used the bank accounts of friends and relatives to transfer sums totaling more than NT$170 million to develop the organization and networks that could potentially be used as a “fifth column,” prosecutors said.

Investigators suspect that at least 50 people helped Chang evade capture, including fishing boat captains, temple members, members of organized crime and active-duty military personnel. The coordination of such disparate people suggests that Chang’s escape involved systematic planning and assistance from a network that could include CCP operatives and Taiwanese collaborators.

The US Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute on Tuesday last week published an article titled “Easy infiltration: The rise of PRC small boat landings on Taiwan” by Ian Easton, an associate professor at the institute and a contributing columnist to the Taipei Times. He wrote that at least eight Chinese men have been arrested in Taiwan in connection with cross-strait small boat landings since 2021. Five were reported at a known invasion beach, while the rest were at ports or river deltas believed to be of high interest to Chinese war planners, he added.

Some of the men involved in the landings could have been low-level operatives employed “to create noise or diversions, drawing attention away from” criminal or Chinese activity, or they might have been involved in transporting high-value military weapons or have been coming “to extract spies,” the report said, adding that those motivations were “highly speculative.” Organized crime organizations and underground Chinese intelligence networks could help people wanted by the authorities flee the country, Easton wrote, citing Chang’s case as a possible example.

Authorities must treat Chang’s case and his escape as a counterintelligence operation. They should trace any funding involved back to its source to cut off foreign money and potential lines of communication with foreign agents and close a potential conduit for agents and weapons to reach Taiwan’s shores. Coastal defense and detection capabilities must also be improved as soon as possible. In addition to intensifying patrols in vulnerable areas, authorities should work with civil groups to establish a civilian watch community to bolster coastal monitoring.

Lawmakers must also pitch in by strengthening laws to prevent foreign forces from infiltrating Taiwan. Amendments to the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and the National Security Act, along with the passage of the proposed “foreign influence transparency act,” which would establish a foreign agent registration system, could help make foreign funding for individuals and organizations more transparent. Together, these measures would impose tougher penalties and expand the legal tools for those investigating people who collaborate with foreign powers.

With potential CCP collaborators operating within Taiwan, public awareness and vigilance must also be heightened. While an electronic monitor failed to stop what appears to be the orchestrated extraction of a suspect in a national security case, the public can fill in where those systems fall short by acting as a final line of defense to prevent criminal activity and safeguard national security.