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EDITORIAL: Amateur
hour on national security
The revelation this week that Jacqueline Liu (¼B©k©k), the former head of the
nation¡¦s representative office in Kansas City, Missouri, hired a Chinese
national as a housekeeper late last year after her second Philippine maid had
fled is as sad as it is worrying. What it is not, though, is surprising, given
how lax this administration has become on national security.
As if the alleged mistreatment of two housemaids, which sullied the nation¡¦s
image abroad, were not enough, Liu also broke Ministry of Foreign Affairs
regulations by hiring Xie Dengfeng (Áµn»ñ), a Chinese national, and concealing
Xie¡¦s identity from the ministry. Such actions could have endangered national
security.
In her defense, the embattled Liu says she was unaware of the ministry
regulations on hiring Chinese nationals. It is hard to imagine which possibility
is worse ¡X that she is lying, or that she was indeed unaware of the rules, which
raises serious questions about internal security and counterintelligence at the
ministry.
As any Taiwanese official should know, the Chinese intelligence apparatus is
monitoring Taiwanese diplomatic missions abroad, and there is no reason to
believe that the office in Kansas was any different. It can be assumed that
Chinese agents were aware of the crisis that was developing at Liu¡¦s residence,
which would have provided a perfect opportunity to direct a source like Xie at
her and task her with collecting intelligence.
An investigation is needed to determine whether this was the case, but in the
past decades, there have been dozens of instances of Chinese espionage in the US
involving defense officials, government agencies, high-tech firms and
universities.
The mere possibility that Liu could be the target of such an operation should
have been enough for her to avoid doing what she did. Heads must roll over this
lapse, and possibly not just Liu¡¦s.
For let us not kid ourselves: However much the administration of President Ma
Ying-jeou (°¨^¤E) likes to say that cross-strait relations have improved, and
despite the ¡§love and peace¡¨ theme and the cuddly panda used as a backdrop at a
recent cross-strait conference in Greater Kaohsiung, Beijing remains very much
on a war footing. Beyond missiles, destroyers and aircraft, this also means
aggressive intelligence collection.
Unless the Ma administration starts taking counterintelligence seriously by
acknowledging the nature of the threat, allocates sufficient resources to meet
the challenge and provides appropriate training on international security to all
government employees, China will continue to penetrate Taiwanese security
wherever it wants. Opportunities for China to conduct espionage against Taiwan
have increased dramatically amid growing exchanges between the two sides.
Failing to make the appropriate changes signals that Taiwan has all but given up
on resisting aggression.
The analogies between Austria on the eve of World War II and Taiwan today, with
Ma playing the role of former Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, are
disturbing. While Ma and Schuschnigg were undoubtedly well-intentioned, Nazi
Germany then, like Beijing now, used a ¡§policy of peaceful penetration¡¨ that
heightened pressure on independence movements while isolating their targets
internationally.
The first point of the Nazi program, we must remember, demanded ¡§the merger of
all Germans ... in a Greater Germany,¡¨ with Adolf Hitler adding in his
hate-filled Mein Kampf: ¡§One blood demands one Reich¡¨ ¡X language ominously
familiar to Taiwanese.
We all know what an ugly fate befell Austria. Now that ¡§one blood demands ¡¥one
China,¡¦¡¨ should not this administration, if it indeed intends to ensure its
survival, take the problem of continued Chinese aggression as seriously as it
warrants, starting with the security of its missions abroad?
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