Gods and gangsters: how China seeks to spread its influence inside Taiwan

The avowed purpose of the Chinese delegation travelling to Taiwan with a statue of the sea goddess Mazu was strictly religious. They were, they insisted, only going to attend one of the most important events, a grand procession, in her honour.

The Taiwanese government stopped the visit, with officials claiming that its real aim was to try and interfere in the upcoming presidential election taking place in the face of president Xi Jinping threatening an invasion to reunify the island with China.

Taiwanese officials warned last year of the attempted use of Mazu, which has 10 million followers, 60 per cent of the national population, to influence the nation’s democracy. It stressed that those participating in religious exchanges with China need to safeguard the “nation’s best interest” and declared that those “engaging in illegal behaviour in cross-strait exchanges” will be prosecuted.

Around the same time that the Mazu and Chinese influence strictures were being issued by Taiwan, another gathering was taking place in the capital, Taipei, raising concern for authorities. The Bamboo Union, reputedly the biggest organised criminal gang in Taiwan, was holding its Lunar New Year celebration banquet with a thousand people seated around 85 tables. The guests were greeted with the accoutrements of 170 young women, dressed in traditional cheongsam and a fleet of luxury sports cars for the ceremony, in which lavish cash prizes were handed out.

Premier Chen Chien-Jen instructed the National Police Agency to clamp down on such events after widespread publicity. Taipei’s mayor, Chiang Wan-an, said new measures, including the formation of a task force, to counter the Bamboo Union were under consideration.

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The Union, with a membership of 20,000, is not only engaged in widespread criminality. It is closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and has been accused of carrying out illicit action, as well as acts of violence, on its behalf. This has included assaulting Hong Kong independence campaigners who had sought refuge in Taiwan after the crackdown by Beijing.

The gang’s leader, Chang An-lo, also known as the “White Wolf”, who has served a 10-year jail sentence in the US for drug smuggling, fled to Shenzhen from Taiwan in 1996 while being investigated over his criminal activities.

Chang founded the China Unity Promotion Party (CUPP), which pushes for reunification with China. He returned to Taiwan and was charged with taking illicit political donations, fraud and tax evasion. White Wolf’s image as a fierce underworld boss subsequently took an embarrassing blow when he tripped and fell into a coffin his party had produced as a prop to symbolise the mass casualties that they say would transpire if Taiwan resisted a Chinese invasion.

In this weekend’s election, the current vice-president, Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is running against Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT) and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

China has been carrying out aggressive military drills and missile testing as the campaign unfolded. There has also been a significant ratcheting up of asymmetric warfare, cyberattacks and disinformation offensives.

The main targets have been the DPP, which is campaigning on the theme of Taiwanese sovereignty, as well as sections of the media, civil rights activists, students and artists’ groups. In effect, all who are deemed to be enemies of the Chinese Communist Party and its autocratic policies.

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Religion and organised crime, it is claimed, is very much part of this asymmetric arena, and integral to a “multi-front mission” being conducted by Beijing.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), through its United Front Work Department, which tightly controls religious affairs and influences operations, actively encourages Taiwanese temple groups to visit the mainland where they are personally welcomed by senior officials.

When, for instance, Cheng Ming-kun, a prominent Taiwanese Mazu leader visited Beijing, he was hosted by Song Tao, the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office who called for “spiritual harmony” between China and Taiwan and more frequent exchanges to “jointly create a bright future for reunification”.

The vast majority of 12,000 Mazu temples in Taiwan are unregistered and do not publish financial accounts. This, say activists against Chinese hegemony, makes it very difficult to ascertain if they are receiving funding from Beijing.

Taiwanese security officials say they have tracked Beijing “infiltrating” Mazu temples on offshore islands, and the relatively uninhabited east coast, which would be the route of a future attack. China has also established connections with temples in rural areas, channels for spreading disinformation as well as gathering information.

The Chinese military has openly linked its activities to divinity. A video released recently displayed warplanes and submarines alongside Matsu Island, which has a large statue of the Mazu, with a commentary calling for Chinese forces and the goddess to cast a protective sphere around the Taiwan Straits. The same video showed doctored clips of outgoing Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen and vice-president Lai Ching-te (the current DPP candidate) with chants of “save Taiwan, oppose Taiwan independence” from a crowd.

“It makes sense that religion is now part of China’s grand united front strategy on Taiwan”, says Chang Kuei-min, a religion and politics analyst at the National Taiwan University pointed out. “Beijing has used religious lineages to uphold the unification narrative. ‘Homecoming’ and ‘both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family’ are central themes in cross-strait religious exchange events”.

Cheng Ming-kun, the religious leader who met China’s Taiwan Affairs chief during a mainland visit, denies being part of a Beijing campaign. “We are spreading the peace message of goddess Mazu, we [are] helping communications”, he maintained. “We are not helping with unification, but we need to increase exchanges so that we don’t walk towards a war.”

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The delegation he took to see Song – an “old friend” – were Taiwanese businessmen seeking commercial opportunities in China where “the government thinks Mazu will bring peace”.

Cheng said he had been invited to visit more Mazu associations in China, including one in Shenzhen. But he had decided not to go, as the coming election would lead to questions about the trip. “I don’t want to be seen to be taking sides”, he said.

Bamboo Union boss Chang An-lo, who found Shenzhen a convivial place for his exile from Taiwan, may have gone there recently before returning to Taiwan, say officials. “ White Wolf” has kept a low profile recently, but one should not underestimate the influence of organised crime, they said.

Research conducted before local elections in November 2022 found that more than 15 per cent of councillors, 136 people, had criminal records for crimes including extortion, kidnapping and gang-related activities. The KMT had strong links with the Bamboo Union in the past.

Beijing will keep up the pressure on Taiwan for unification, overt and covert, whatever the result of the coming election. President Xi has asked the Chinese military to be ready to take the island by 2027. Meanwhile, asymmetric warfare, including using gods and gangsters for political ends, looks set to continue.