A false espionage alarm about a Taipei subway user has fuelled concerns that growing fears of Beijing are breeding unhealthy suspicion on the island and eroding public trust.
The controversy erupted after a social media user posted a photograph of a man holding a laptop on a Taipei Main Station metro platform on Saturday.
Seeing the words “2nd Theatre Photosynthesis System” appeared in simplified Chinese on the laptop’s screen, the social media user suspected that the man was a mainland Chinese spy on a mission.
The social media user reported the man to several government agencies, including the police, immigration authorities, the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau.
Ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Lin Chu-yin also raised the alarm, saying a similarly named “Photosynthesis public-opinion monitoring system” had been described as a mainland Chinese platform for monitoring online big data and gathering intelligence.
She warned that if information about passenger flows, surrounding facilities and public movements at Taipei Main Station were collected and analysed by Beijing, it could potentially be used to plan wartime attacks or disrupt transport.
“If this is true, this is definitely not simply someone using a computer, but a serious national security issue,” Lin said, calling for an immediate investigation.
But claims unravelled just hours later.
Taipei police tracked down the 48-year-old man, surnamed Kao, who told officers he had been waiting for a friend while listening to an online investment course.
According to investigators, Kao’s account matched the course materials and the ominous-sounding “2nd Theatre Photosynthesis System” was simply a label used by the investment course.
At the time of the incident, Kao had been listening to a course on compound interest.
Police concluded that the incident was a misunderstanding.
The episode has triggered a wider debate over whether concerns about mainland Chinese infiltration – intensified by years of cross-strait tensions and warnings about espionage, disinformation and “fifth column” activities – are creating excessive suspicion among parts of Taiwanese society.
Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary, has repeatedly denied the espionage accusations. Mainland China’s counter-espionage agency has also warned of infiltration and influence efforts from Taipei.
Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
Chang Yuan-hsiang, a political-science professor at Soochow University in Taipei, said collective “witch hunts” throughout history had typically been driven by fear, leading societies to manufacture enemies and hatred.
He compared the atmosphere today with Taiwan’s White Terror era in the 1950s, when warnings by the then Kuomintang (KMT) authoritarian government that “communist spies are right beside you” were common.
Chang said that since Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te had taken office, Lai’s “McCarthyist-style” anti-mainland China political messaging had helped to fuel excessive suspicion among some DPP supporters.
He said some people genuinely believed that the opposition parties were “fellow travellers” of the mainland’s Communist Party and that large numbers of Beijing’s “fifth column” were hidden among opposition supporters.
Chang said there was a danger of groups becoming driven by emotion and susceptible to extreme rhetoric and political cues rather than evidence. Confirmation bias then reinforced those beliefs, prompting people to “search for enemies among their fellow citizens” and spread their suspicions rapidly through social media, he said.
The laptop controversy is just the latest false alarm.
In June last year, DPP legislator Kuo Yu-ching posted online about a man in a park whom she said was acting suspiciously.
The man was reportedly a former Taiwanese special forces soldier and was conducting an ordinary live stream. Kuo deleted her post and apologised.
Other cases cited by critics include a Hong Kong tourist who was confronted while photographing Taipei’s Ziqiang Tunnel and accused online of gathering intelligence.
The tourist was later identified as a fan of Taiwanese rock band Mayday – the tunnel is mentioned in one of the group’s songs and is a popular destination among fans.
In another incident, a man photographing streets while carrying equipment was flagged on social media as potentially suspicious amid warnings about mainland Chinese espionage. He turned out to be a land surveyor.
Opposition politicians said repeated false alarms risk producing a “cry-wolf effect” in which the public eventually becomes desensitised to warnings about genuine espionage.
On Monday, opposition New Party deputy secretary general Yu Chih-pin filed a complaint with Taipei prosecutors against Lin, accusing her of “potentially violating the Social Order Maintenance Act by spreading unverified claims capable of disturbing public peace”.
DPP legislative caucus whip Chuang Jui-hsiung defended the need for public vigilance, saying there was “nothing wrong with alerting security agencies when people encounter something they believe could pose a national security concern”.
But he acknowledged that once police established that Kao was simply taking an investment course, “his innocence should be made clear”.
Chang warned that the broader danger was the erosion of social trust.
He said trust was the “invisible glue” that held democratic societies together and once it disappeared, polarisation intensified, confidence in institutions declined and governing became more difficult.
“Self-serving politicians, a lack of mutual trust among the public and the continuous fragmentation of society constitute Taiwan’s greatest crisis,” Chang said. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
