Shen-Style Surveillance：Rise of Extreme Right in Taiwan？
The Storm Media Editorial, June 12, 2024
After the recent European Union parliamentary elections, where the far right made huge gains, unexpectedly, voices of "rightist adventurism" have emerged from Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as well. DPP Legislator Shen Po-yang (or Puma Shen) proposed controlling hundreds of thousands of high-risk individuals who could potentially form the "Fifth Column," and he also mobilized the "Kuma Academy" to engage in propaganda on campuses, expanding surveillance powers infinitely. Do these initiatives represent the rise of the extreme right in Taiwan?
“High-Risk Group” All-Encompassing, Spies Omnipresent
Ranked second in the DPP party list for legislators-at-large and regarded as a representative figure, Legislator Shen said in a media interview a few days ago that China is conducting many gray-zone operations, and Taiwan should have a specific responsible unit to counter China's operations, evaluate how China may be infiltrating politically and economically and possibly engaging in espionage, and to control high-risk population numbering in tens of thousands within Taiwan. However, Taiwan lacks such a specific unit responsible for dealing with the Fifth Column and identifying who might be "local collaborators."
Soon after, Legislator Shen made a U-turn that the "Fifth Column" he mentioned was a false issue, and his focus was on the scope of "high-risk groups." But no matter how he modified it, according to his perception, not only Taiwanese business people, Taiwanese employees, mainland spouses, and Taiwanese students who had spent time across the Taiwan Strait are considered high risk, even the village chiefs who were entertained, the gangsters who took refuge in the mainland, the legislators and university professors who visited the mainland are all highly suspicious. His designation is boundless and all-encompassing, as long as anyone has any contact with the other side, they are likely a lurking Fifth Column element.
Alternative Internet Celebrity Peddling "Sense of National Subjugation," McCarthyism Replicated
Legislator Shen, originally a famous criminal law tutor, pursued legal sociology studies in the United States and then returned to Taiwan to teach criminology at the university. He has never presented any solid prevention and control suggestions on the issue of Taiwanese people being bamboozled into Southeast Asia, nor has he ever published any research results relating to the Chinese Communist Party, regime, and the People's Liberation Army (PLA), but now he indulges in the rhetoric that Taiwan has a "Fifth Column" and asserts that Taiwan has long been shrouded in an invisible war and must "strengthen the awareness of friend and foe." A character who strongly sells the "sense of national subjugation" in cognitive warfare and exhibits no concept of human rights, intends to override the Communication Security and Surveillance Act and claims to monitor hundreds of thousands of people!
Coincidentally, Wang Yi-chuan, policy director of the DPP, by analyzing the mobile signals of the "Bluebird Movement" supporters, has been suspected of possessing personal data provided by telecommunications operators potentially useful for "political surveillance." This kind of significant matter may involve a violation of constitutional rights by the DPP government, but it is surprisingly seen as acceptable and actually taken for granted by the DPP officials, government officials, and supporters. The "Big Brother" mentality of the DPP regime is fully exposed.
The lessons of history are not far away. The rise of the far-right forces in the United States in the 1950s such as "McCarthyism" frequently violated human rights under the guise of preventing communist infiltration, leading the United States into a witch-hunting period known as the "White Terror." Even the scientist Oppenheimer was affected. The racist and fanatical factions rallying under the flag of patriotism seem to be stirring in Taiwan now, resembling a Taiwanese version of McCarthyism being reproduced by the DPP.
"Kuma Academy" Enters Campus: Nazis Resurrected in Taiwan?
Regarding its decades-old insistence on "the party, government, and military withdrawing from campus," the DPP has now abandoned this principle. The "Kuma Academy," professed to resist China and love Taiwan, has openly entered the campus to promote "Youth Defense Courses" to students. " Author Yang Du was surprised to find some suspicious and dangerous signs. In his article "The Shadow of the Black Bear Troops and Zweig's Melancholy," he discerned a shadow and undercurrent of fascism in Taiwan. Through the writer Stefan Zweig's "The World of Yesterday,” it was shockingly sensed that the militia-style "Black Bear Army" was actually a replica of Hitler's Black Shirt Army.
Looking back at the rise of the Nazi Party into power in Germany in the 1930s, the "Enabling Act" enacted through parliament destroyed the principle of separation of powers in the Weimar Constitution and gradually pushed Germany into war. The lessons of history are clear. The enemy of democracy has always been the ruling party that expands administrative powers, not the opposition party. It's like George Orwell's "Big Brother" reappearing. The book "1984" describes that under the rule of “Big Brother,” not only was there the "Ministry of Truth" responsible for propaganda and revision of history, but the entire society was also closely monitored by the government.
When President Lai Ching-te took office, former Legislator Kuo Cheng-liang, foreseeing the qualitative change of the DPP, repeatedly warned: "Lai is Taiwan's version of Hitler, and the DPP is moving toward Nazism." Just as the German Nazi Party mobilized the crowd to surround the democratically elected parliament and caused the "Reichstag Fire," doesn't today's "Operation Bluebird" near the Legislative Yuan bear resemblance to history? Allowing Shen, the legislator-at-large with a fascist mentality, to override the "Communication Protection and Surveillance Law" and to monitor and control the people, how is this different from what Hitler and the Nazi Party did back then?
Chinese Speedboat Drove Straight in, Can Legislator Shen and His Supporters Resist Enemy Only with Rhetoric?
Legislator Shen first brought up the concern about "Fifth Column" in Taiwan, and then clarified that it was a "fake issue," contradicting himself and making things worse. In fact, he is just a new internet celebrity who actively engages in cognitive warfare selling the phobia of national subjugation. Astonishingly he is exalted by the DPP as the facade figure of the so-called "Taiwanese faction." This rhetorical anti-China business is really a hugely profitable venture. As long as he follows the DPP narrative and hypes it up, he can reap huge profits and vigorously advocate the restoration of the mass surveillance system.
What is ridiculous is that the Coast Guard Administration, Ocean Affairs Council, under the Lai administration failed to intercept the mainland Chinese speedboat driven by a former communist warship captain, which dashed from the mainland straight to the Tamsui Pier in Taiwan, while Legislator Shen was solely focused on capturing so-called "Fifth Column" high-risk individuals. DPP legislator Lin I-Chin even blindly supported Shen's endeavor, chanting, "We are all Puma Shen!
Legislator Shen and his cohorts have been given key posts by the Lai administration. They emerged as leading figures in anti-China initiatives, apparently utilizing rhetoric to hammer out a "hedgehog Taiwan,” which is essentially self-defeating, in disregard of reality, and putting Taiwan at risk while falsely claiming to "cleanse people's hearts"!