Four former employees of the Democratic Progressive Party, the ruling party of the Republic of China, have been convicted of spying for mainland China. One had been an assistant for Lai Ching-Te (shown above), the current president of the ROC, when he was vice president and for a time during his presidency. Another had worked for Joseph Wu, now secretary-general of the ROC’s National Security Council (The Guardian, September 25, 2025).
Huang Chu-jung, a former assistant to a New Taipei city councillor, received the lengthiest sentence of 10 years. He was also found guilty of money laundering and fined 1m New Taiwan dollars (£25,000) and is separately facing charges of “developing a criminal organisation” for China.
The court heard that Huang had sent information to Chinese intelligence agents via encrypted software. He also instructed Chiu Shih-yuan, the former deputy head of the DPP’s Taiwan Institute of Democracy, a training school for politicians and staffers, to seek information from Joseph Wu, the former foreign minister and presidential adviser. Chiu was sentenced to six years and two months behind bars. Huang denied wrongdoing while Chiu pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors had sought lengthier sentences for the four men and are considering whether to appeal.
Huang had received the equivalent of around $164,000 USD from China, Chiu around $65,000. The prosecutors had wanted the defendants to spend up to 18 years behind bars.
These aren’t the only well-placed spies who have been caught during the Lai administration. In March 2025, four military men, “including three who were responsible for security at the Presidential Office Building, were…sentenced to imprisonment of up to seven years on charges of selling state secrets to China.” All four confessed.
In January, the Associated Press reported that in 2024, current and retired military personnel accounted “for around half of the 64 alleged spies put on trial,” according to the ROC’s intelligence bureau; an increase “from 16 in 2021 and 10 in 2022.”
Spying is just one of the many methods that China uses, sometimes in cooperation with criminal gangs, to try to undermine the Republic of China.
