In Taiwan, ‘Mainland Spouses’ From China Become a Focus of Infiltration Fears

Among the hundreds of thousands of Chinese women who have settled in Taiwan after marrying men from the island, Hsu Chun-ying stood out for her political ambition. She organized other migrants from China, mingled with prominent Taiwanese politicians and came close to becoming a candidate for the legislature.

Now she is in jail, fighting charges that she was recruited by the Chinese Communist Party to secretly infiltrate and influence Taiwan, the island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. Prosecutors have accused her of taking instructions from Chinese officials to interfere with Taiwanese legislative and mayoral elections, and of helping one of those officials covertly enter Taiwan under the guise of a business trip.

Ms. Hsu is at the center of one of Taiwan’s most difficult security debates: how to counter what officials describe as growing Chinese infiltration of the island’s politics, media and internet, without casting suspicion on all Chinese migrants.

To government agencies in Taiwan, Chinese-born women, known as “mainland spouses,” are a concern because they often still have family members or property in China. Beijing could exploit those ties by threatening their relatives or promising financial rewards, to secure their cooperation.

“Of course, we don’t want to stigmatize the entire mainland spouse community,” said Shen Yu-chunga deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which manages relations with China. “But there is a small minority of mainland spouses who may come here with specific assignments, and that is extremely troublesome.”

The scrutiny has unnerved some of Taiwan’s community of 261,000 Chinese migrants, who are mostly women, according to the island’s immigration agency. In interviews, several women said that they were being unfairly cast as agents of Beijing.

“Isn’t it a great injustice to label this entire group as Communist Party allies?” said Sammi Yang, a Chinese-born woman who has acquired citizenship in Taiwan and works to help other migrants.

A New Kind of Infiltration Fear

Prosecutors have accused nearly 80 people of violating the island’s Anti-Infiltration Act, which went into force in 2020 and prohibits interference in politics by external parties, according to a search of a Taiwanese court database. Most are locally born politicians, journalists and business owners. A handful are Chinese migrant women like Ms. Hsu.

She faces up to five years’ imprisonment on the charge of infiltration. Ms. Hsu was arrested last year and has since been in jail, accused of working with Chinese officials to try to get mainland-born spouses elected to the legislature. Her lawyer said she could not be interviewed while she is in detention and facing trial. Ms. Hsu has rejected the infiltration allegations, while pleading guilty to separate financial charges.

Experts say recent cases illustrate how China’s strategy has evolved from piecemeal espionage into more sophisticated efforts to reach into Taiwan’s society and political system for information and influence.

“They have shifted from isolated targets to a more systematic and organized approach,” said Ko Cheng-henga former deputy director general of Taiwan’s national security bureau — its main intelligence agency. “To put it bluntly, it is increasingly obvious that they want to cultivate more pro-China proxies.”

But Taiwan’s courts have wrestled over the boundary between legitimate free speech and activities, open and illicit, that are directed by the Chinese government. A court last year rejected a case under the island’s National Security Act, dismissing charges against a woman accused of accepting support from Chinese intelligence agencies.

From a Migrant Advocate to Would-Be Lawmaker

Ms. Hsu’s journey reflects the complex history of the Taiwan Strait.

In 1949, China’s Kuomintang government lost a civil war against Communist Chinese forces and fled to Taiwan, resulting in decades of hostility across the strait. Marriages between people in Taiwan and China were rare until the 1990s when contacts resumed, and a wave of unions followed.

Ms. Hsu, who was born in Shanghai, moved to Taiwan in the 1990s after marrying a Taiwanese man. She has said she obtained citizenship in 2000.

She became a prominent organizer of “mainland spouses,” helping to form an alliance of groups that represented their causes. Chief among their grievances was that Chinese-born spouses must wait six years before they may apply for citizenship, two years longer than other nonlocal spouses.

“She really is formidable when it comes to organization,” said Ms. Yang, the Chinese migrant activist, who got to know Ms. Hsu through their work helping other spouses. “Whatever the issue, if you went to her with it, she would do her best to help resolve it.”

Ms. Hsu and other mainland-born women began to attract the attention of Taiwan’s opposition parties as a potential voting bloc. Like many such spouses, Ms. Hsu regularly returned to China to visit family and became increasingly involved with Chinese officials through her organization.

In 2023, the Taiwan People’s Party, an upstart opposition party, considered nominating her as a candidate for the legislature. But she pulled out after opponents questioned her eligibility and her visits to China. She denied accusations that she was taking orders from Beijing.

“I don’t think a society should be torn apart like this,” Ms. Hsu said in an interview with a Taiwanese online program at that time. “We shouldn’t differentiate based on where people are from. If you come here and love Taiwan, you are Taiwanese.”

The Accusations Against Hsu

Prosecutors say that by the time of her political rise, Ms. Hsu was already involved with two Chinese officials who sent her instructions. She, in turn, passed on information and gossip about Taiwanese politics. They communicated by WeChat, a Chinese messaging app.

Messages between Ms. Hsu and the officials cited in the indictment suggested that they tried to help Ms. Hsu get herself and other migrants from China nominated as candidates for Taiwan’s legislature.

“We’ll send our people into the legislature, and then they’ll have the power to speak out,” wrote one of the Chinese officials, Yang Wentao, of China’s ministry of civil affairs, according to the indictment.

The other Chinese official named in the case was Sun Xian, who belonged to a Communist Party-controlled minor party in Shanghai and specialized in dealings with Taiwan. Ms. Hsu is accused of concealing Mr. Sun’s political background to bring him to Taiwan on the pretext of a business trip. (According to the indictment, Mr. Sun met with a deputy chairman of the opposition Nationalist Party, which favors closer ties with Beijing, as well as with retired military officers and functionaries of the Taiwan People’s Party.)

In court, Ms. Hsu acknowledged knowing Mr. Sun, the Chinese official, but argued that she was simply helping him with the visit on behalf of a friend, Lo Ying, who is also being prosecuted. Ms. Lo rejected Ms. Hsu’s version of events in testimony to the court.

The prosecutors also presented a text message that they said Ms. Hsu sent to Ms. Lo about Mr. Sun’s visit. “Low key and as secret as possible,” the text message said.

Earlier this year a different kind of controversy erupted around Li Chen-hsiu, a mainland-born woman who briefly joined Taiwan’s legislature as a lawmaker for the Taiwan People’s Party.

Ms. Li has not been accused of any espionage or criminality. Instead, officials said Ms. Li was not eligible for office because she had failed to give up her residency in China. Ms. Li disagreed, arguing that the Taiwanese authorities make it near impossible for Chinese migrants to meet eligibility requirements for elections. She was eventually expelled from her party, after falling out with its leaders, and removed from the legislature.

“No political party or democratic country, especially one founded on human rights, should measure the loyalty of its citizens based on their place of birth,” Ms. Li said in an interview. “If you treat mainland spouses with these preconceived notions, that’s unfair to them.”