TAIPEI — Taiwan’s government took an unusual step Sunday, unveiling a new website designed to give Chinese citizens a secure way to pass along intelligence information — saying a growing number of people inside China are fed up and looking for change.
The two governments have a long history of spying on one another. China considers Taiwan its own territory, despite the island operating as a self-governed democracy. Taiwan has reported a rising number of Chinese espionage cases in recent years.
In explaining the new platform, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau pointed to worsening economic conditions on the mainland and what it described as continued tight political control. “Coupled with a growing range of social and livelihood-related problems, these conditions have fuelled public discontent,” the bureau said in a statement posted in both Chinese and English. “As a result, an increasing number of individuals have approached relevant agencies in Taiwan, wishing to provide various types of information.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office had not responded to a request for comment as of the time of this report.
When visitors open the website, they are greeted by a one-minute promotional video that the bureau said was created using artificial intelligence. The video depicts a Chinese civil servant watching as colleagues are investigated and removed from their positions one after another.
“Ah, yet another person has been taken away,” the unnamed civil servant says in the video, speaking in a northern Chinese accent. The dialogue appears with subtitles written in the simplified Chinese characters used in mainland China.
“The old comrades are inexplicably vanishing one by one,” a narrator adds.
The video concludes with the official purchasing a mobile phone and typing on it, accompanied by the words: “Now is the time to change.”
While the website is blocked within China, many Chinese citizens regularly use VPNs — tools that allow access to otherwise restricted sites such as Western social media platforms and search engines.
The bureau called on Chinese nationals both inside the country and living abroad to “actively provide information and make changes with courage.” Officials noted the approach mirrors tactics already used by intelligence agencies in countries including the United States, Britain, and Israel.
The platform is intended to allow Chinese nationals to share intelligence-related information in order to “expand the bureau’s diverse intelligence sources,” according to the bureau’s statement.
China has employed similar strategies in the past. In 2024, Beijing announced an email address where individuals could submit tips about alleged crimes committed by Taiwan “separatists.”
Taiwan’s government continues to reject China’s claims of sovereignty over the island, maintaining that only the Taiwanese people have the right to determine their own future.
