From the Washington Post:
Jiang Jianguo was no James Bond. As a spy for Taiwan, he acknowledged, his biggest exploit was getting a map of the Shanghai port. But he did what he was told by his Taiwanese spymasters and spent 13 years in Shanghai’s Tilanqiao PrisonÔºà‰∏äʵ∑Â∏ÇÊèêËìùÊ°•ÁõëÁã±Ôºâ after Chinese counterespionage agents caught him in a sting.
Now, the Chinese national said in a lengthy interview here, he believes that Taiwan’s government owes him for the risks he took and the time he served. Specifically, he said, he wants back salary for the long jail stretch, a decent monthly pension and a residence visa allowing him to live out the rest of his life in Taiwan. As for the whereabouts of his missing wife and daughter, he said, he is willing to consider that water over the dam as far as Taiwan is concerned…
Jiang’s two-year career as a spy — one chapter in a life ripped apart by China’s tumultuous recent history — provides a rare glimpse of the relentless espionage between mainland China and Taiwan. Although China is the world’s most populous country and Taiwan only a little island 100 miles offshore, each government is the other’s main intelligence target. In particular, each devotes large amounts of human and financial resources to obtaining information on the other’s military every year. [Full Text]
