Welcome to Spycast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum and the oldest spy podcast in the United States.

I'm your host, Sasha Inber. And each week I take you into the shadows of espionage, intelligence, and covert operations across the globe.

It's no secret that China has recently stepped up political and military pressure on the

democratically governed island of Taiwan. But then there are the Chinese Communist Party's

covert efforts, recruiting from the inside, gathering intelligence, and exerting influence.

Here to talk to us about Beijing's Shadow Games is the executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute,

Russell Scha.

Hey, Russell, thank you so much for coming on.

There are journalists who have reported that cases of espionage in Taiwan by the Chinese are rising.

Is that because they actually are increasing or because people are just getting better at catching Chinese spies?

The Chinese espionage threats facing Taiwan is growing in sophistication, scale, and also the intensity.

And I think the numbers do tell an important story here because in 20203 and 24, there were a total of 112 individuals who were prosecuted for espionage and espionage related

crimes in Taiwan. To put that number into perspective, between 2006 and 2016, a period of 10 years,

there were only a little over 40 individuals who were prosecuted for espionage and espionage-related

crimes. And so the number is certainly increasing.

There is, however, I think nuances to those numbers that's important.

The first of which is that I don't think any reasonably informed observers of the threats that Taiwan

faces from the People's Republic of China really believes the fact that there were only

40 or so operatives,

spies in Taiwan, caught operating within the 10-year time period. So those numbers were woefully,

woefully low, and I think there are several reasons for that. One is a lack of political will,

another, as you referenced earlier, perhaps a lack of capacity to be able to catch spies. But what is absolutely clear, though, is that the numbers are increasing.

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