Chinese Agents in Taiwan trying to sway public Opinion!

Politics Taiwan Politics
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I sincerely and honestly believe that someone on this Taiwan Politics board is one of these people mentioned in the article! We all know who he is…Really guys, think about it.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/06/06/2003173930

[quote]High security official says China launched a new type of war

ACTIVE NETWORK: A new book claims that secret cells have been established in Taiwan by Chinese agents to test and sway public opinion

STAFF WRITER
Sunday, Jun 06, 2004,Page 4

Advertising According to a news article in a local Chinese-language newspaper yesterday, National Security Council Secretariat Director Lieutenant-General James Liu (劉湘濱) claims in a book about Taiwan’s security strategies that the Chinese government has laun-ched a new kind of information war on Taiwan.
This war involves sending special operations personnel to the country to establish a network of secret cells aimed at gauging and influencing public opinion.

participation

According to the report, these secret operatives are posing as members of the general public and are actively expressing their opinions by participating in TV and radio call-in shows, by calling and sending e-mails to different political debate programs on TV and radio, by sending thousands of e-mails to locally elected officials, and by actively participating in and manipulating local opinion polls, all with the aim of misleading local residents.

The members of the network, who avoid illegal activities and maintain contact via the Internet and through secret signals, are difficult to detect, and their aim is to influence public opinion prior to an electronic-warfare attack.

According to Liu, another task for the network is to provide support when troops are sent for a military attack by instigating the local population to demand that the government stop fighting as soon as possible, and to suppress local hatred for the enemy and the will to resist, thereby forcing the government to capitulate.

According to the report, it is estimated that these cells already consist of several hundred people, but they are rarely discovered by government authorities or local residents. [/quote]

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“they are rarely discovered”! so, they have been discovered. was such in the news?

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I think it would take quite a lot of detective work to really show the connection. Hard to prove but 100% plausible that the PRC would do something like this.

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a mate of mine at one of the larger ‘embassies’ here said it is quite common knowledge in the foreign affairs community that at any given time there are 100’s of PRC operatives in Taiwan.

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Yes, but what about the ones that are trying to sway public opinion through the media. I would think they would have to have very good cover lest they be discovered for making a lot of noise like AC_Dropout knows if you check him out he just looks some Pro-KMT/Pro-Unificationist Freakazoid, but we can’t prove that he works for the CCP.

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But surely this doesn’t apply to ac? All he succeeds in doing is making himself look like an idiot.

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Couldn’t really understand what the idea was when I first read this story and don’t know. How much more impact can a bunch of commie agents have than the rest of the pan-blue rabble. I mean, when two of the three biggest newspapers are already in the pro-Beijing camp anyway, how much more headway are a bunch of guys phoning in to talk shows and e-mailing legislators going to have. Not that I’m saying the story is wrong; I find the premise credible enough. Just can’t see what real effect such an effort is likely to have. There are so many China stooges here already – the entire PFP for example – what difference can a few paid agents make?

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Why would the PRC even need to have special agents waging information war. They’ve got enough nationalistic, dogmatic Chinese living abroad and spreading the gospel for free. I get so irritated by PRC nationals living in the US. They don’t seem to sense a contradiction between their patriotic nationalism and the fact that their homeland is an undemocratic dictatorship and that spreading China’s control to Taiwan and HK means spreading undemocratic dictatorship around to the world which is a bad thing. And they are so close minded and dogmatic about it all, which I suppose is par for the course when it comes to nationalism. My rant for the day…

9

Sounds like the people at the Taipei Times are running out of stories to write about. What’s next on their front page. Lien Soong is really LTH alien love child.

Most people know that the PRC spies of the past were just information gatherers. Not even top secret information. But general newspaper clipping information.

Get real me a CCP spy. hahaha. The CIA pays better anyways.

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I met one once. I was wearing my “taiwan Zheng Ming” shirt on 228, 2003 at the President’s office and a man was standing on the corner taking notes on the President’s office. He noticed the shirt and got “flustered” and introduced himself as a journalist from HK, but spoke poor English. He was very interested in which American organization I worked for and even more interested in getting my name. His name card was from a PRC paper with “very limited readership”.
A good way to tell is by looking at their shoes. I spotted an agent in San Francisco near the KMT HQ and the "Chinese American Language Institute. He was just watching the building for hours. I walked by several times and he was just watching the door. I looked at his shoes and they were … I can’t clearly describe…but…Beijing shoes with the shoelaces the way they do it. Eh…anyone who has spent any time in Beijing knows. Like rubber toed spord shoes with big laces. Only Beijingers wear those. I figured he was seeing who was coming and going.

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But surely this doesn’t apply to ac? All he succeeds in doing is making himself look like an idiot.[/quote]

it is known that the intelligence of dictatorships does not always match their will to be devious :slight_smile:

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Of course they have lots of agents here. (As Taiwan does there.) Does this honestly surprise anybody? As for manipulating public opinion, well, given China’s PR history they’re more likely to shoot themselves in the foot.

Sandman wrote:

But that fits their modus operandi precisely! :smiling_imp:

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So these people get paid by China to spout rubbish? I can do that…

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As Forumosans know only too well …

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As Forumosans know only too well …[/quote]

I love it when mods get catty with each other, especially mods in the same forum. :astonished: Cracks me up. :smiling_imp:

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I did a google search for Beijing shoes and this is all I could come up with. Are these the kinds of shoes you’re talking about?

If you have a picture, that’d be nice.

I’m on the lookout for some spooks frum cawmoonist Red China tryin ta infiltrate us :saywhat:

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Sort of…yeah…just not high tops and real wide with thick laces. I had a roommate who was a Beijing Opera star and he dressed the same way. The too atheletic look as well.

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[quote=“maowang”]I met one once. I was wearing my “taiwan Zheng Ming” shirt on 228, 2003 at the President’s office and a man was standing on the corner taking notes on the President’s office. He noticed the shirt and got “flustered” and introduced himself as a journalist from HK, but spoke poor English. He was very interested in which American organization I worked for and even more interested in getting my name. His name card was from a PRC paper with “very limited readership”.
A good way to tell is by looking at their shoes. I spotted an agent in San Francisco near the KMT HQ and the "Chinese American Language Institute. He was just watching the building for hours. I walked by several times and he was just watching the door. I looked at his shoes and they were … I can’t clearly describe…but…Beijing shoes with the shoelaces the way they do it. Eh…anyone who has spent any time in Beijing knows. Like rubber toed spord shoes with big laces. Only Beijingers wear those. I figured he was seeing who was coming and going.[/quote]I also was accosted by someone at the Taiwan Zhen Ming march and they wanted my name and phone number. Strange as that never happened before to me in Taiwan and there was no explanation I could think of why this guy wanted my name.