On October 4, the FBI arrested 34-year-old Californian housekeeper Zhang Wanying at Los Angeles International Airport. She was suspected of secretly filming Lai Qingde's eldest son Lai Ting and his family living in the United States, and reported it to Chinese officials.
The United States recently arrested a California woman for following the Taiwanese president's son. There are three noteworthy aspects of this case.
First, an atypical espionage case. Although this is not a typical espionage case that "steals military secrets" in our minds, it does have great potential risks. According to the U.S. criminal charges, the defendants collected photos, videos, residences, vehicles and other information about the son of Taiwan’s president, and then reported them to China. Viewed individually, much of this information may not even be confidential. But from the perspective of intelligence work, knowing where an important person and his relatives live, what kind of car he drives, who his family members are, his route of action and even his behavior patterns, etc., all have high intelligence value in themselves. FBI agents further pointed out in the criminal complaint that if China hopes to put pressure on Taiwan's president during a potential conflict, having information like this about close relatives of high-ranking Taiwanese officials, as well as photos of homes, vehicles, etc., may be a bargaining chip.
Second, it is a form of cross-border repression. This case gives us a glimpse into what cross-border intelligence work looks like. The person who performs the task is not necessarily the kind we traditionally imagine to be a highly trained professional intelligence agent who has been lurking for many years, or who has assumed a false identity. It is more likely that he is an ordinary person living in the United States, but he accepted instructions and invitations from Chinese officials to move, follow, film, or collect information within the United States through "intelligence outsourcing." Other China-related cases announced by the U.S. Department of Justice in recent years have shown similar characteristics: contacting overseas people → delivering tasks → collecting specific information → reporting to Chinese government personnel. Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law stipulates: “All organizations and citizens shall support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work in accordance with the law.” In other words, as long as they are Chinese citizens, they have the obligation to support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work in accordance with the law. What we need to pay attention to is that the Chinese government extensively uses ordinary people with legal status and normal occupations overseas to carry out intelligence collection and political harassment.
Third, there are legal issues worth considering in Taiwan. The legal basis for the United States this time comes from Section 951 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which is the "crime of illegally serving as a foreign agent." To put it simply, if a person agrees to act under the command or control of a "foreign government or official" in the United States, in principle, he must notify the U.S. government in accordance with the law, otherwise it is illegal. This is not exactly the same as the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) that everyone is familiar with. Section 951 more often appears in cases involving secret activities of foreign governments, intelligence collection, and espionage activities.
Finally, we would like to put forward a hypothesis: "What if the exact same thing happened in Taiwan today?" A person living in Taiwan accepted instructions from China to follow the relatives of a political figure, photographed his house, license plate, family and recorded his life trajectory, and then handed the information to the Chinese government. Legally speaking, he does not seem to have directly stolen state secrets, developed organizations, bribed civil servants, or intervened in elections. So, which law should Taiwan prosecutors use to pursue prosecution? Of course, Taiwan does not have national security laws. We have the National Security Law, the National Intelligence Law, the Anti-Infiltration Law, and the act of tracking itself may also involve other laws under certain circumstances. But whether Taiwan has a law similar to Section 951 of the United States that can directly deal with "secretly accepting the command of a foreign government and conducting activities within the territory" is another question. Taiwan’s laws may not necessarily catch you, but we need to define more clearly: Does this type of behavior involve national security? What kind of information collection is considered confidential? When modern intelligence work no longer just involves stealing state secrets, but may involve collecting addresses, license plates, personal relationships and life trajectories, and even behavioral patterns, will Taiwan's current counterintelligence-related laws be enough to deal with it?
The Presidential Office stated that our country expresses its strongest condemnation of such barbaric acts that harm people who advocate freedom and democracy or their families.
