China's foreign minister, Qin Gang, comes from an intelligence agency, and the US and Taiwan must prepare for a long-term confrontation with China's new gray zone "secret agent" diplomacy.

(File photo, Reuters)

In 1988, the young Comrade Qin Gang did not graduate from the Diplomatic Academy, the cradle of training diplomats in China.

He didn't go to that school.

Instead, he got his diploma from the "University of International Relations" (UIR) in Beijing.

In my recollection of my early diplomatic career, the school is known for its close relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency of the Chinese Communist Party.

In 1964, based on the school's important position as a training base for special forces, the International Relations Institute was listed as a "key university" together with elite schools such as Peking University and Tsinghua University. An institution of incomparable importance.

Qin Gang of the Ministry of State Security is not a regular

In 1978, Comrade Qin Gang's alma mater was quietly removed from the list of "key colleges and universities", probably because of the need for reforms after the elimination of the "Gang of Four", requiring "key colleges and universities" to be affiliated with the Ministry of Education.

It is a pity that the International Relations Institute became a subordinate unit of the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and lost its status as a prestigious school in China's "Ivy League".

Nonetheless, to this day, the ICU website still prides itself on its designation as a "key university" prior to the 1964 Cultural Revolution.

Several scholars in the United States and Australia have confirmed this relationship.

A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) warned that IRS "has been deemed extremely high risk because of its affiliation with China's domestic intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security."

Please read on...

Therefore, it is not surprising that after graduation, Qin Gang was assigned to work in the "Beijing Diplomatic Service Bureau" (DSB) under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of State Security, and was sent to work in the Beijing branch of United Press International.

Having worked in the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing, the U.S. Embassy in China, and consulates throughout China, I have experience working with many of the outstanding young graduates assigned to us by the Diplomatic Service and its provincial branches. Proof that these cadres are talented and hardworking.

They always arrive early and leave late.

They are eager to learn as much as possible about what is going on in our office.

Our local staff of political and economic "fellows," generously provided by the Diplomatic Service, deftly and quietly direct our attention to interesting developments they think we should report.

These employees arranged by the Diplomatic Service are all working under the guidance of the Ministry of Homeland Security. I personally think that they are all current officials of the Ministry of Homeland Security.

intelligence work under diplomatic cover

Therefore, the young Comrade Qin Gang must be very effective in guiding the direction of news reports of United Press International. He will direct the news work to the topics designated by the Ministry of State Security that foreign media should pay attention to, and avoid subjects that the Ministry of State Security does not want to be reported.

Qin Gang entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat after four years of strict traineeship in foreign news media in Beijing.

With his journalistic background, his "diplomatic cover" is - is there anything else?

—Twice sent to the UK as a press officer, and also experienced in the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He and the Diplomatic Service Bureau of the Ministry of State Security have placed informants in all foreign diplomatic and public affairs departments, as well as in all foreign media bureaus in Beijing. Stay in close touch.

New diplomatic line takes orders from intelligence officials

I bring up these past events because Comrade Qin Gang is now China's foreign minister and a symbol of China's new diplomatic line.

And China's new diplomatic line is not promoted by professional diplomats, but by professional intelligence officials.

Don't get me wrong - as American comedian Jerry Seinfeld said: "...not that there's anything wrong with that." Since the early 1900s, a paradigm shift (paradigm shift) has generally existed in the field of Chinese diplomacy, and foreign diplomats still cannot fully understand this shift.

Paradigm shift does not accept universal norms

How does this affect Taiwan?

First, it means that China's global diplomacy is no longer based on generally accepted norms.

As former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pointed out a few years ago, this means that China's diplomacy is not about "solving problems".

In January 2018, Kissinger said: "...our approach is usually pragmatic. We want to find solutions to problems. The Chinese approach is: no problem will be solved in the end. To them Each "solution" is an entry ticket to another problem..." This also means that China's diplomatic model only favors non-diplomatic operations, influence, black propaganda (black propaganda), slander, espionage operations , and forging a path outside of official relations.

In addition to Qin Gang, the qualifying of another character also puzzled me.

He is Comrade Song Tao, the new Ministerial Director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

Comrade Song spent twenty years as a provincial cadre in Fujian; his first decade (1978-1992) was in Fujian's "forestry" department, including at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia (Monash University) studied abroad for three years (but the school has never opened a forestry department).

Throughout the 1990s, Comrade Song worked his way up the ranks of the CCP's local party committee in Fujian until he was promoted to the "Vice President" of the "International Trust and Investment Corporation" in Fujian Province in 1999.

At the same time, Vice Governor Xi Jinping is struggling with the "Yuanhua Case", a corruption scandal that broke out in the Xiamen Special Economic Zone.

I guess Xi Jinping should have retreated completely.

Because not long after that, he was promoted to governor of Fujian.

However, Comrade Song Tao suddenly disappeared from Fujian, and then appeared in India as the "Counselor of the Embassy" of the Chinese Mission in New Delhi.

I don't think Song Tao had much friendship with Xi Jinping at the time, so it's a wonder why Song Tao suddenly popped up halfway in an important Chinese embassy on the other side of Asia?

Even more puzzling is the fact that two years later, the mysterious New Delhi counselor disappeared again, only to reappear as China's ambassador to mosquito-infested Guyana in the Caribbean.

Then, Ambassador Song Tao was dispatched to such a backward and remote area, is it possible for the senior leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to have a deep impression on him?

What is the real perception?

However, his work performance in Guyana must have been very good, because two years later, in 2004, he was transferred back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing to serve as the "director of the Foreign Work Bureau of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Communist Party of China". ".

Mr. Song then became China's ambassador to Manila - but only for a short one-year term!

For a person who is not considered a "veteran cadre of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs", these are incredible orders.

There are apparently some unusual reasons behind this.

In 2008, Song Tao formally joined the "Leadership Team" of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was promoted to Vice Minister; director).

In November 2015, on Song Tao’s 60th birthday, he was promoted to minister of the International Liaison Department (ILD) of the CCP Central Committee, nominally the party’s foreign minister.

Comrade Song Tao went from being an inconspicuous "head of relevant departments" in Fujian Province in 2000 to becoming the "top leader" of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee in 2015. This is a very remarkable achievement.

In 2017, Comrade Song was also elected as a member of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Successive jumps to Song Tao United Front Wizards

I don't doubt Comrade Song's talent at all.

During his tenure as head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, his performance was unambiguous, especially when dealing with those socialist fraternal states, such as North Korea's moody and hard-to-please "Dear Marshal" Kim Jong-un. Xi Jinping has become famous for his "foresight" at the summit with US President Trump in Beijing in November 2017.

Shi Yaxuan, an associate professor of the Geography Department of Kaohsiung Normal University, wrote a letter to Liberty Times' "Freedom Square" at the end of last year, telling this interesting story.

After searching several databases, we can find that Song Tao was a very active minister in the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China—although he was a little older.

It is generally believed that he will not be re-elected as a member of the 20th CPC Central Committee.

He appears to be retiring with dignity.

My take is that Comrade Song's bizarre mid-career turn (climbing from a provincial nobody to New Delhi's "Ace Powers") hints at his background in intelligence.

Moreover, it took him only 15 years to advance from a "foreign affairs" bureaucrat to a minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and a member of the Central Committee, proving that he is a rare "united front" (united front) wizard.

Confronting spy diplomacy, Taiwan and the United States are preparing for war

In the end, I was as surprised as everyone else that Comrade Song was suddenly reassigned from his supposedly retired position to lead the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

I think that in 2023, President Xi Jinping's overall policy on international relations—especially Taiwan policy—will be implemented by leading cadres like Qin Gang and Song Tao with backgrounds in intelligence and "proactive attacks."

Both American and Taiwanese diplomats must "bring out their house skills" and prepare for a long-term confrontation with China's new gray zone "espionage" diplomacy, a model of diplomacy that shrugs off traditional negotiations and compromises.

(The author Tan Shenge is a retired American diplomat. He once served in Taipei and Beijing respectively. He is currently the director of the "Future Asia Project" of the American Center for International Assessment and Strategy. Translated by Chen Hongda of the International News Center)

Tan Shenge