According to the book The Secret of the Chinese Communists’ Attack on Taiwan, Mao Zedong fully intended to take advantage of Chiang Kai-shek’s unstable foothold to invade Taiwan at the end of 1950. The plan of attack on Taiwan required not only ships, aircraft, and troops, but also an intelligence network of undercover spies and saboteurs to deploy deep into Taiwan, awaiting orders to strike at any time.
The leader of this nest of spies was Cai Xiaoqian, whose mission was: 1. Plot against and subvert the generals of the Taiwanese military; 2. Assisted the communist army in combat operations when they landed in Taiwan; 3. Foment social unrest, organize riots, and participate in sabotage operations in Taiwan.
Cai Xiaoqian was selected to expand the spy network
The communist spy infiltration of Taiwan dates back to April 1946, when the Taiwan Provincial Working Committee of the Communist Party of China was established in China. Over time, this secret organization developed a vast network of underground Party members ready to strike at a critical moment. The leader of this dark organization was Cai Xiaoqian. He was the number one spy at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Taiwan station. When the Kuomintang government began withdrawing to Taiwan in 1949, Cai Xiaoqian’s spy network expanded rapidly.
The background of Cai Xiaoqian
Cai Xiaoqian was born in 1908 in Japanese-occupied Taiwan and grew up under colonial rule. He left Taiwan and studied at the Department of Social Sciences at Shanghai University from 1924 to 1925. Under the influence of the CCP’s high-level officials and others in school, he came into contact with Marxism-Leninism and participated in the Taiwan Youth Association in Shanghai.
After graduating, he traveled back and forth between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. In 1926, he served as a member of the Central Committee of the “Taiwan Cultural Association,” participated in the anti-Japanese imperialist movement, and also participated in the “Shanghai Taiwan Youth Association,” which established the “Taiwan Autonomy Association” in Shanghai. He returned to Taiwan in 1927 to promote communism, but was arrested and imprisoned for 10 months.
An expert in interrogation techniques
During World War II, Cai Xiaoqian became an expert in interrogating techniques and plotting against Japanese prisoners of war, as well as translating and analyzing Japanese military documents. As a Taiwanese born during the Japanese occupation, he was fluent in Japanese.
In the first half of 1946, a few months after Japan’s surrender to the Allies, Cai Xiaoqian came to Shanghai to prepare for his next mission. The Communist Party carefully selected him to lead the spy network lurking in Taiwan.
Orders to prepare agents, foment unrest, and plot the invasion
In July 1946, he returned to Taiwan under a new identity and lurked around in his hometown. He and other agents quickly integrated into local life. Within six months of their mission, they had recruited 70 locals to join the plotters. In 1949, many troops retreated to Taiwan, and in this gloomy atmosphere, the intelligence network established by Cai Xiaoqian expanded rapidly.
In December of the same year, he reportedly controlled as many as 1,300 intelligence agents, and he was able to mobilize up to 50,000 people to unwittingly participate in factory strikes, protest marches, and school riots.
Cai Xiaoqian told senior officials of the Third Field Army that his secret troops were ready and that before the Chinese communist invaders landed, they could incite society to work together to subvert the Nationalist government. He also suggested that the plan to attack Taiwan should ideally be launched in April 1950 because the weather was most suitable for amphibious landing operations.
How Cai Xiaoyian was caught
Following Cai’s timely arrest, the Communist Party’s intelligence network quickly collapsed, and the CCP’s plan to attack Taiwan was squashed.
Cai Xiaoqian did not know then that after the collapse of the intelligence system on the mainland and the mass defection of troops to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek had already determined to eradicate the communist spy nests in Taiwan.
A breakthrough in the hunt for spies
Chiang Kai-shek’s spy hunters made a breakthrough in September 1949 when they uncovered an espionage network in Keelung and seized an underground printing house. They then traced the line of command to uncover a senior Communist military official in charge of espionage activities in southern Taiwan. They arrested this senior Communist official in Kaohsiung in November.
As the Communist Party spies were arrested one by one and confessed, Cai Xiaoqian’s long-running intelligence network was uncovered.
By January 1950, Taiwan’s secret service officers had enough evidence to point the finger at Cai Xiaoqian. Kuomintang counterintelligence agents discovered the address of his Taipei residence and quickly captured and arrested him.
On March 1, 1950, after a lengthy interrogation, Cai Xiaoqian, the chief spy of the Chinese Communist Party in Taiwan, decided to surrender in exchange for the following conditions: Cai Xiaoqian would become a Taiwanese military officer, his girlfriend would be set free, and he would receive a large payout.
For these handsome rewards, Cai Xiaoqian confessed to the whereabouts of many CCP spies in Taiwan. About 1,800 agents were arrested, more than 3,000 agents were annihilated, and more than 8,000 agents were sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. All the CCP’s special intelligence agencies in Taiwan were destroyed, and all the spies were arrested.
The spy network was wiped out
During this time, the CCP’s secret intelligence agents and plotters in Taiwan were destroyed, and all spies were arrested. The intelligence network that Cai Xiaoqian had painstakingly cultivated in Taiwan was eventually destroyed with the help of his own hands.
By early June 1950, the CCP had learned what had become of their scheme in Taiwan. The Nationalist Government published the results of the large-scale raid on the spies and their outstanding success on the newspaper’s front page. The CCP’s plan to attack Taiwan at the end of 1950 was conclusively wiped out.
In October 1982, Cai Xiaoqian died in Taipei at the age of 74.
Translated by Chua BC
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