ComradeSpahija

Yesterday might have been the most consequential day for Taiwan in years, yet - as often - literally no Western media covered it (I checked, only Taiwanese media did).

There are many ways to wage war but the best way, or so the Chinese doctrine famously goes, is to conquer the enemy's strategy, not their army. Or, put another way, to win without fighting.

Imagine for the sake of argument that you're a president and your intelligence chief walks into your office to inform you that, for the better part of the past decade, your government’s top national security advisors, even your top aide, have been feeding your adversary every classified briefing, every military plan, every diplomatic strategy.

Every “secret” weapon, every tactical advantage, every backup plan, your every thoughts - they knew it all in real time.

How would you feel in that moment? You'd surely feel betrayed, but more than that - completely outmaneuvered before the game even began, utterly exposed and defenseless. Right?

Well, that's exactly what just happened in Taiwan. This isn't a hypothetical scenario - it's literally yesterday's news from Taipei (focustaiwan.tw/society/20250…)

What happened?

Four former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members were indicted on June 10, 2025 for espionage on behalf of the PRC: Huang Chu-jung (黄取荣), Chiu Shih-yuan (邱世元), Ho Jen-chi (何仁杰), and Wu Shang-yu (吴尚雨).

As a reminder the DPP is the “anti-China“ party in Taiwan, the pro-independence party that’s been in power continuously since 2016.

These people weren't just ordinary party members:

• Wu Shang-yu was one of president Lai Ching-te’s top aides
• Ho Jen-chieh was top aide to Joseph Wu when Wu served as foreign minister (Wu is now National Security Council Secretary-General)
• Chiu Shih-yuan is the former deputy head of the DPP's Taiwan Institute of Democracy, the DPP's own internal think tank

In other words, it's safe to assume that every major Taiwanese defense plan, every diplomatic initiative, every presidential movement, and every strategic assessment has been an open book to Beijing for the better part of a decade.

Sure, it’s possible that this is itself a psyop, that these people are in fact all innocent and that the DPP is waging a paranoid witch hunt.

But even if that were the case, the outcome is virtually the same: China has effectively already won the psychological warfare.

How can Taiwan's military and political leadership ever again have confidence in their own security apparatus? The mere suspicion of such comprehensive penetration at the highest levels of government is enough to paralyze decision-making and destroy the trust essential for effective defense.

It also results in destroying the trust of Taiwan’s partners: seeing this as an American, you can only conclude that you must operate under the assumption that any exchange of classified materials, operational details, or strategic assessments with the government in Taiwan will be on Xi Jinping's desk before the meeting ends. It effectively neutralizes any meaningful defense cooperation.

In other words, the conclusion is devastating for Taiwan: China might have just achieved the ultimate expression of its own strategic doctrine - they have conquered Taiwan's strategy so completely that conquering by fighting becomes unnecessary.

And this isn’t the only immensely consequential recent news for Taiwan.

In fact, yesterday - decidedly quite the eventful day - there was an even more important revelation: China has effectively “broken” the so-called “First Island Chain“.