Taiwan's spy agency launches website for Chinese nationals to report intelligence amid rising cross-strait tension
Taiwan's National Security Bureau on Sunday launched a secure online channel encouraging Chinese nationals to submit intelligence, saying growing economic hardship and political control have fuelled public discontent.
The new channel
Taiwan's intelligence service opened a website on Sunday that it described as a secure drop for Chinese nationals willing to hand over political, military, economic and social information. The National Security Bureau said the platform, built under the National Intelligence Work Act and modelled on practices of US, British and Israeli agencies, aims to diversify its intelligence sources.
In recent years, China's economy has faced growing difficulties, while political control has remained tight. Coupled with a growing range of social and livelihood-related problems, these conditions have fuelled public discontent.
The bureau added that an increasing number of people had already approached relevant agencies in Taiwan wanting to share various types of information.
The video message
The site opens with a one-minute, AI-generated promotional video. It depicts a Chinese civil servant watching colleagues being taken away by investigators. A narrator says, in a northern accent, “The old comrades are inexplicably vanishing one by one.” The clip ends with the official buying a mobile phone and declaring it is time to change. The website is blocked in mainland China, though many Chinese use VPN services to circumvent restrictions.
Beijing's side
Beijing has run similar tip-collection efforts of its own. In 2024, China's Taiwan Affairs Office set up an email address for reporting crimes committed by what it calls Taiwan “separatists.” According to Radio France Internationale, the same office renewed a public call for email tip-offs in March of this year, accusing the ruling Democratic Progressive Party of suppressing political opponents and backers of peaceful cross-strait exchanges. China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately comment on Taipei's move, Reuters reported.
Cross-strait backdrop
China considers democratically governed Taiwan part of its territory and has not ruled out force to achieve unification. Military pressure has intensified in recent years with large-scale Chinese exercises around the island. This week Taiwan's own military conducted live-fire rocket drills to demonstrate its readiness. Analysts cited by RFI see the new intelligence website as another front in the broadening political and information competition between the two sides.
