From: mcyang@pollux.usc.edu (Bien-Chao Iunn)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan,soc.rights.human
Subject: KMT campus spying activities
Date: 5 Nov 1992 09:25:22 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.usc.edu

The following article appeared on page 73 of  Newsweek,  May  17,
1982.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
                      Spies in the Classroom

Thousands of students from Taiwan enroll in American colleges and
universities  each  year  -  and often find that their government
comes with them.  Student-agents of  Taiwan's  ruling  Kuomintung
Party  (KMT)  haunt campuses all across the United States, taking
names of suspected dissidents.  The Libyans, Filipinos, and South
Koreans  also  spy on  students  here,  but as Stanley Spector, a
professor of Chinese studies at Washington University says,  "The
Taiwanese  seem  to put the most money into it."  The problem was
spotlighted most dramatically last summer when Chen  Wen-Chen,  a
professor  at  Carnegie-Mellon University, went home to visit his
parents and then was found dead on the campus of National  Taiwan
University.   Although  Chen's death was officially said to be an
accident or suicide, many  believe  he  was  killed  by  the  KMT
because  of  his  alleged  anti-government activities reported by
spies in the United States.

According to Taiwan students here, as many as  five  branches  of
the  KMT  government  (including  the  equivalents  of  the  U.S.
National Security Agency, FBI,  and  Defense  Department)  gather
intelligence  in  the  United States.  They are loosely organized
through Taiwan's Coordination Council for North American Affairs.
Students  say  the  KMT  often recruits its spies out of military
academies.  Most are bona fide students who moonlight as spies; a
few  are  full-time  agents posing as students.  KMT officials in
Taipei reportedly keep tabs on  which  U.S.   schools  need  more
informants  and  which students need to be watched.  According to
sources in the United States, some informants receive  a  monthly
salary  of  $600;  others  get  $50  or $100 for each report they
submit.  In a sample report from Carnegie-Mellon, informants were
asked to provide an "analysis of the situation between us and the
enemies," as well as  information  regarding  various  "enemies,"
with space allotted for five names.

When the KMT gets a negative report about a student,  it  usually
issues  a  warning.  Further transgressions can prompt a visit by
security police to the student's family; ultimately, "dissidents"
may  have their passports revoked and be imprisoned.  Rita Yeh, a
former University  of  Minnesota  student,  was  sentenced  to  a
fourteen-year  prison  term  in January 1981, in part because she
attended Chinese movies in the United States.

Because no one is certain who the spies are, meeting a  colleague
is  a  strain  for Taiwanese students.  At Yale University, where
there are reported to be  at  least  three  spies  among  the  45
Taiwanese,  students  are careful about what they say in front of
each other.  Last fall one Taiwanese student  at  an  Ivy  League
school  transferred  to  another college for a semester, and soon
received a visit from a countryman he had never met.  During  the
visit, he discovered the names of reputed spies in the stranger's
notebook.  When the student  returned  to  his  old  campus  this
spring,  he  saw the stranger there, too.  Students say there are
also more subtle ways of identifying probable spies.  Anyone  who
can  afford  frequent  trips home, or who returns home during key
political holidays in October, is suspect.

Taiwan Government officials in the United States  deny  that  any
spying goes on.  According to Congressional sources, however, the
U.S. Justice Department and  the  FBI  acknowledged  the  problem
during House Asian and Pacific Affairs subcommittee hearings last
year on Chen's death.  The House passed legislation, softened  in
conference  with  the Senate, that would have banned arm sales to
countries that have spies on American campuses.   Meanwhile,  the
U.S.   Government   and   the   universities   are  inadvertently
subsidizing informers: some students get grants from both,  along
with their spy allowance from Taiwan.

            Dennis A. Williams with Penelope Wang in New York and
                                           Mac Margolis in Boston