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Intelligence treason in the making
The systematic efforts by our government, uncovered by this newspaper last week,
to keep secret a visit by a top Chinese security official last month raise
questions that go far beyond secrecy and involve matters pertaining to the very
nature of our society.
Though alarming in itself, it is not unusual for senior security officials from
different countries to meet behind closed doors. In some cases, such meetings
even involve cooperation with countries that have poor human rights records. In
the “war” against terrorism launched after Sept. 11, for example, Western
intelligence agencies began working closely — and secretly — with their
counterparts in pariah states like Pakistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Controversial — and at times disastrous — though this cooperation may have been,
there are fundamental differences between that type of cooperation and what is
developing between Taipei and Beijing. For one, it involves countries that
recognize each other. Also, there are independent, institutionalized oversight
mechanisms in democratic systems that ensure a certain degree of transparency,
which plays a crucial role when operations involve intelligence sharing with
repressive regimes.
In the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was deported from the US and
tortured by Syrian security officials, oversight and a subsequent inquiry helped
expose the controversy, shamed Canadian authorities and made it more difficult
for similar mistakes to be repeated.
Cooperation with China on cross-strait crime fighting, ostensibly the purpose of
the visit by Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security Chen Zhimin (陳智敏), is not
overly worrying. What makes the visit so problematic, rather, is the context in
which it happened, at a time when the credibility of oversight mechanisms under
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), beginning with the judiciary, are now under
question. It is also occurring at a time when Beijing is intensifying its
campaign against Taiwan, seemingly with the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT)
acquiescence.
Equally worrying is the KMT’s resurrection of the Republic of China (ROC)
Constitution, which blurs the lines between Taiwan, the ROC and the People’s
Republic of China (PRC), as shown by the administration’s recent comments about
Chinese claims over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台).
If one sticks to the Constitution, Tibetan and Taiwanese independence movements
become inimical to the integrity of the ROC, just as they are inimical to the
PRC’s “one China” claims. As such, depending on how one interprets “crime” and
“terrorism” — both on the agenda during Chen’s visit — it is not impossible that
Taiwanese and Chinese agencies would share intelligence on such groups.
Amid growing cooperation, Taiwan’s side could be wiling to share information for
the sake of reciprocity, just as Western agencies did in the lead-up to the 2008
Beijing Olympics. This is especially likely when governments treat intelligence
as a currency or as a means to advance a political agenda. This, however, is a
slippery slope, one in which an agency is willing to compromise its moral
integrity in the name of cooperation or access to otherwise unobtainable
intelligence. This becomes all the more likely if the order comes from above,
making it nearly impossible for the agencies involved to refuse.
With weakened, politicized oversight and a growing tendency to conduct business
behind closed doors, there is no knowing what kind of information Taiwanese
security agencies will pass on to their Chinese counterparts. In this context,
can we trust our intelligence agencies, or the unaccountable officials with
proper access, not to give Beijing what it wants in return for information about
criminals, or to show its “goodwill?” What if Chinese intelligence asks for
information on Tibetans, Uighurs, human rights activists, or independence
advocates?
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