TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A US scholar said Thursday that China is using spies to gain real-time access to President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) security team.
The Global Taiwan Institute, a Washington-based think tank, held a forum Thursday titled "Enhancing US-Taiwan Cooperation in Countering the CCP’s Ideological Work and Political Warfare," per CNA. Among the attendees was former CIA analyst and China expert Peter Mattis, who authored GTI’s March report on the CCP’s covert operations against Taiwan.
Mattis said the CCP is focused on Taiwan’s military police command and presidential security detail. Mattis is concerned that Beijing has learned lessons about the importance of targeting leadership from the Russia-Ukraine war and has created special forces mockups of the Presidential Office and official residence, in China.
Mattis said having a national leader during wartime is critically important. “This is a very clear and deliberate effort to make sure that they have real-time awareness of the president's security detail, where they are, and making sure that they can test that awareness," said Mattis.
Regarding Beijing’s cyber infiltration of Taiwan, Mattis claimed the CCP has previously attempted to reach and recruit government officials in charge of human resources.
He said the CCP can now directly breach institutions holding large amounts of personal data, such as local databases, hospitals, and insurance companies. He added they now know where government compounds are located and where civil servants live in Taipei.
He added that some hacker groups previously identified as operating against key infrastructure in the US and Guam are now active in Taiwan’s cyberspace. However, reports on these groups targeting Taiwan’s political infrastructure are rare, which he finds troubling.
Mattis stressed that cybersecurity is not only about preventing intrusions but also about building resilience. He expressed concern that Taiwan may underestimate how deeply the CCP has already infiltrated. “It's the thing that you don't know that's going to hurt you,” he warned.
He also touched on the CCP’s united front tactics, noting that Ministry of State Security papers on Taiwan often convey a sense that “Taiwan’s slipping away" as Taiwanese develop a separate identity from China. In response, Beijing is promoting a Chinese identity narrative and is targeting elites and political parties.
Mattis warned the Ministry of State Security and the PLA continue to expand their targets and infiltration tactics. Even fortune tellers and gambling den members could be recruited as access agents to help Chinese intelligence agencies identify potential targets, he added.
