Taiwan Intensifies Resistance to PRC Political Warfare

Taiwan Intensifies Resistance to PRC Political Warfare

Executive Summary:

• Under Lai Ching-te, Taiwan has significantly strengthened its countermeasures against political warfare from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Prosecutions of espionage cases, expulsions of influencers calling for military invasions of Taiwan, and tighter outbound travel restrictions to the PRC have increased since Lai unveiled his 17-point national security plan in 2025.
• Espionage is the most damaging aspect of the PRC’s political warfare against Taiwan, and Beijing has been targeting members of its military. Taiwan has stepped up prosecutions, with convicted spies handed heavy prison sentences.
• Taiwan is choosing to respond to political warfare because, unlike military coercion, there is a lower risk of conflict escalation arising from more aggressive law enforcement efforts. The enforcement actions are also consistent with Taiwanese law.

Taiwan is intensifying efforts to resist attempts by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to subvert its political system with the ultimate goal of annexation. In late June, its National Security Bureau announced the launch of a website for Chinese citizens to safely report intelligence tips with a video shared on social media (National Security Bureau, accessed July 1). The move mirrors steps taken by other Western intelligence agencies, but it also appears to be a direct response to the PRC’s rollout of an online platform to encourage reporting of “Taiwan independence” (台独) activities (Taiwan Affairs Office, August 2, 2024; YouTube/Central Intelligence Agency, February 12).

The Lai Ching-te (賴清德) administration is aggressively prosecuting PRC espionage, cracking down on subversive Chinese influencers, and increasing oversight of Taiwanese politicians and retired military personnel traveling to the PRC. Taipei has been able to carry out these administrative measures because they do not require the approval of the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan. This contrasts with a relative lack of progress on Lai’s domestic defense agenda, where opposition legislators from the Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have stymied the efforts of Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), with troubling implications for Taiwan’s military readiness.

Prosecuting Espionage

Espionage poses the most immediate national security risk to Taiwan of any PRC political warfare and the Lai administration has targeted it aggressively. In 2024, the most recent year for which government data is publicly available, Taiwan indicted 64 individuals for espionage-related crimes, up from 48 in 2023 and just 10 in 2022. Military personnel, including active and retired service members, accounted for two-thirds of the defendants in 2024, demonstrating the CCP’s persistent attempts to infiltrate Taiwan’s armed forces (China Brief, November 10, 2023, May 9, 2025).

Since Lai introduced a 17-point national security plan in 2025, high-profile espionage indictments involving the military have increased markedly (Office of the President of the Republic of China, March 13, 2025). In April, six Taiwanese military personnel—two active-duty and four retired—who had been indicted in November 2025 for leaking military secrets to the PRC received prison sentences of 4.5–8.5 years from Taiwan’s High Court. Five of the defendants were found guilty of “developing organizations [for the PRC], and spying on, collecting, leaking, delivering, or transmitting classified information on military, national defense, and official matters” (發展組織、刺探、收集、洩漏、交付或傳遞軍事、國防、公務等機密資料). They also recruited Taiwanese citizens and active and retired military personnel. The PRC funneled NT$11.1 million ($348,000) into Taiwan to fund the operation, prosecutors say (Central News Agency [CNA], April 15).

In May, CTi News (中天新聞) reporter Lin Chen-yu (林宸佑), also known as Ma De (馬德), was indicted on charges of contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and other national security laws (RTI, May 6). Prosecutors say that Lin had recruited six military personnel (both active-duty and retired) to gather military intelligence and record pro-Beijing videos. The case allegedly includes leaked classified documents about the Taiwanese military’s elite 333rd, 66th, and 99th brigades, known for their combat capabilities (The Liberty Times [LTN], June 21). The Taiwanese Army’s 333rd Mechanized Infantry Brigade has trained and conducted exercises with the U.S. military for many years (The Taipei Times, June 22).

In yet another case involving Taiwan’s military, Taiwan’s Supreme Court in late June rejected the appeal of former diabolo instructor Lu Chi-hsien (魯紀賢). Earlier this year, Lu was sentenced to 10.5 years in prison for spying for the PRC. He recruited seven military officers, soldiers, or their associates for these espionage crimes (SETN, June 25). Most notably, Lu and his accomplices leaked the itineraries for then-President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) 2023 Guatemala and Belize state visits to the PRC (Tai Sounds, June 16).

Influencer Crackdown

In tandem with its anti-espionage campaign, the Lai administration has cracked down on PRC influencers residing in Taiwan who have advocated on social media for its forceful annexation by Beijing. While such commentary was tolerated under previous administrations, which hesitated to punish individuals based on free speech grounds lest they be accused of authoritarian inclinations, mainstream opinion in Taiwan has hardened against the CCP’s subversive activities.

For that reason, there has been limited pushback against the expulsion of several prominent PRC influencers who held dependency permits through marriage to Taiwanese citizens. The most prominent of them is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), who has about 500,000 followers on the short-video platform Douyin. She was deported in March 2025 after the Taiwanese government assessed that her content supporting a PRC military takeover of Taiwan threatened national security. Specifically, she was found to have violated the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) (Ministry of Justice, accessed July 13). Her residency permit was revoked and she cannot reapply for a family-based permit for five years (EBC News, March 25, 2025).

During the same month, two other PRC influencers were expelled for similar offenses. The women, Xiaowei (小微) and Enqi (恩綺), had 150,000 and 80,000 Douyin followers at the time they were ordered to leave Taiwan, respectively (The Taipei Times, March 27, 2025).

The Lai administration’s influencer crackdown widened in late June. At that time, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) announced that a Chinese man who filmed restricted parts of Taoyuan International Airport during a visit to Taiwan last year and uploaded the footage to social media would be barred from re-entering the country for two years. The video, which included footage of security screening and immigration inspection areas, was posted on the Shanghai-based video platform Bilibili (LTN, June 29).

Tighter PRC Travel Restrictions

The boldest aspect of the Lai administration’s pushback against PRC political warfare is arguably the implementation of tighter restrictions on the travel of Taiwanese to the PRC. In this case, the policies are primarily preemptive and the people involved have not committed any crimes. The administration has recognized, however, that lax oversight of travel to the PRC undermines national security by providing Beijing with easy access to politically sensitive persons.

A notable policy shift came in September 2025 ahead of the PRC’s massive military parade celebrating the 80th anniversary of World War II’s end. A decade earlier, a delegation of mostly retired Taiwanese military officers attended the parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary, along with former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰), who also served as the country’s vice president from 1996–2000. This embarrassed the Taiwanese government, handing the PRC a propaganda coup. Lien insisted on attending, even though then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT had advised against it (LTN, September 3, 2025). The Taiwanese attendees appeared subservient to the CCP leadership, reinforcing the PRC’s “one China” principle that asserts Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

For the 80th anniversary, the government banned all serving government officials and active-duty military from attending the parade, and permanently restricted former deputy heads (and higher) of agencies handling national defense, foreign affairs, and intelligence from attending related official PRC events. Violation of the restrictions could result in high administrative fines, suspension of pensions, and forfeiture of military awards (Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council [MAC], August 14, 2025).

The Lai administration upped the ante in June, barring personnel from both the central and local governments from attending the Straits Forum in Xiamen, Fujian Province (MAC, June 4). In 2025, only central government officials were prevented from attending. The administration’s logic is sound: Under the guise of promoting cross-Strait business ties, the event is a hotbed of united front activity that aims to co-opt Taiwanese into supporting unification with the PRC. Forbidding attendance by government officials reduces national security risks, while not interfering with broader commercial ties. The personnel in KMT Vice Chairman Chang Jung-kung’s (張榮恭) delegation were unaffected and attended the forum (China Times, June 5).

Conclusion

In the past 15 months, Taiwan has significantly stepped up resistance to the PRC’s political warfare. It has tackled the problem from three main angles with aggressive prosecution of espionage crimes, a crackdown on subversive Chinese influencers and tighter travel restrictions on politically sensitive Taiwanese to the PRC. These actions are low-risk from a conflict escalation perspective, unlike responding to PRC military coercion, and also conform to Taiwanese law. As Beijing continues to wage public opinion and political warfare against Taiwan in the months ahead, the efficacy of Taipei’s new measures will be put to the test.