Following Sunday’s broadcast of the “Taiwan spy case” in which Taiwanese resident Li Mengju “confessed” to the crime, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, CCTV, used the same tactic to get another Taiwanese scholar to “confess” to the crime on television on October 12.
According to CCTV’s “Focus Interview,” the Taiwanese scholar is Zheng Yu-chin, a Taiwanese national who teaches in the Czech Republic. He was arrested by Chinese state security authorities last April on suspicion of “espionage” while entering China. The program made no mention of the location where Zheng Yuqin was being held.
This is the second day in a row that the Communist Party’s CCTV has had a “Taiwanese spy” appear on camera and “confess” to a crime. On Sunday, CCTV aired footage of Taiwan’s Li Mengju “confessing” to the crime on its “News Broadcast” program. According to CCTV, Li Mengju was arrested last August on suspicion of engaging in criminal activities that “endanger national security. According to the news broadcasts, the Communist Party’s national security agency recently launched “Operation Thunderbolt 2020,” which uncovered hundreds of cases of espionage and theft of secrets and captured a number of Taiwanese spies.
Taiwan’s Land Commission has criticized the CCP’s media campaign to get people to “admit their mistakes” and “repent” in the media as completely inconsistent with due process of law and the international community has long been unanimous in condemning such improper accusations of judicial and human rights violations.
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said on Sunday that the Land Commission and the SEF are doing everything they can through established channels and other available assistance to keep abreast of the situation of Taiwan’s Lee Meng-chu, who was arrested by China, and to provide the necessary assistance, with the highest priority at this stage of the process being to ensure his safety and protection of his rights.
China’s national security authorities have referred the case to the prosecution for investigation and prosecution on suspicion of “espionage” and to pursue criminal responsibility for the case.
According to the program, Zheng Yuqin is a native of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and was an assistant to former DPP Chairman Zhuo Rongtai. The Zhangzhou state security officer in charge of Zheng Yuqin’s case said that Zheng Yuqin’s smear campaign against China and the Chinese community by calling them Chinese spies has “spread widely in the Czech Chinese community” and “caused a bad influence.
The program also reported that Zhangzhou state security officials said, “Zheng Yuqin has been working with the Taiwan spy agency since 2005, for a long time, in a secretive manner, and he has been providing more and more information, from shallow to deep, to the point where much of the information he has been providing has involved some of his core secrets.
Observers say that China’s current surge in arrests of “Taiwan spies” is occurring at a time of unprecedented tension in the Taiwan Strait. Recently, Secretary Azar, the most senior member of the U.S. Cabinet since the break of diplomatic relations between the United States and Taiwan, visited Taiwan on August 9. This was followed by a September 17 visit by the U.S. Under Secretary of State, who became the highest-ranking State Department official to visit Taiwan. The successive visits of U.S. officials to Taiwan and the elevation of U.S.-Taiwan relations have strongly displeased Beijing. Over the past two months, hundreds of sorties of Chinese military aircraft and warships have frequently crossed the centerline of the Taiwan Sea to harass Taiwan by force.
Observers have also said that the use of “spy cases” as diplomatic retaliation has been a frequent tactic of the CCP in recent years. Immediately after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the former chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, in December 2018 in response to a U.S. extradition request, China arrested former Canadian diplomat Kang Mingkai and businessman Spavor, accusing them of “espionage.
In April of this year, after the Australian Prime Minister called for an independent international investigation into the source of the neo-crown virus, China retaliated against Australia with a variety of measures, including punishing Australian citizens for espionage. The Chinese recently arrested Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who “tells China’s story” for the Communist Party’s CCTV, and accused her of activities that endanger China’s national security. There are reports that Australian-Chinese writer Yang Hengjun, who was arrested on suspicion of “espionage,” will receive a formal indictment on Tuesday.
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