China Car Crash Plan Targeting Hsiao Bi-khim Shocks Taiwan

The Diplomat

2 days ago

Comments late last month by General Petr Bartovský, the director of Czech military intelligence, stated that Chinese officials had planned to ram the car of Hsiao Bi-khim, then Taiwan's vice president-elect, during her trip to Prague last year. In the words of Jan Pejšek, a spokesperson for the Czech military intelligence, this was 'an attempt by the Chinese civil secret service to create conditions to perform a demonstrative kinetic action against a protected person.' The 'kinetic action' was apparently the planned car crash.
Czech military intelligence emphasized that this plot did not 'go beyond the phase of preparation' and that Hsiao was never in danger, seeing as she was protected by Czech security services during her visit. But military intelligence spokespeople also underlined the 'unprecedented' nature of such Chinese actions, saying that this was a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Other details that have been reported on since suggest that the operation was planned by China's military attache in Prague and involved coordination between Chinese diplomatic and intelligence officials.
In contrast to Czech military intelligence officials, diplomatic officials from the Czech Foreign Ministry have downplayed the incident, stating that they cannot reveal confidential details of sensitive cases, but that they were in contact with China.
Hsiao and President Lai Ching-te were elected to office on the same ticket in January 2024 trip. In March 2024 – after the election, but before Hsiao and Lai were sworn into office – the vice president-elect visited Prague. Hsiao's purpose in traveling was likely to reassure European leaders about Lai's stances, given concern from some quarters that Taiwan's new president would prove to be a pro-independence provocateur.
The visit occurred at the invitation of Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil as the latest sign of warming times between Czechia and Taiwan. Nevertheless, Hsiao conducted the trip in her personal capacity so as to prevent the trip from being seen as provocative. Her trip was thus not as high-profile as past visits to Europe by Taiwanese government officials such as Joseph Wu during his time as foreign minister of the Tsai administration. Wu, too, was reportedly surveilled by Chinese government officials during his European travels, who sought to gather information on his meetings.
News of the alleged plot against Hsiao proved a shock in Taiwan. As with Wu previously, it was already known that Chinese officials in Prague had sought to gather information on who Hsiao met with. It was also previously known that Hsiao had been surveilled during her trip to Prague last year, and that her motorcade was followed by a vehicle driven by China's military attache. While following Hsiao, this military attache ran a red light. Such surveillance was perceived as a means of intimidation at the time.
However, it was a revelation that Chinese efforts to intimidate Hsiao went as far as potentially crashing a vehicle into her car. Although headlines in international media have generally referred to China's potential 'kinetic action' as an effort at intimidation, the incident is being perceived in Taiwan as potentially an assassination attempt.
An event in domestic politics added to the sense of alarm in Taiwan. At the same time as Hsiao's European tour, the Kuomintang (KMT) – which had newly taken control of the legislature in Taiwan – had sought to introduce a new bill that would have required a new set of presidential elections if the vice-president-elect died. Consequently, pan-Green political parties such as the Taiwan Statebuilding Party have accused the KMT of potentially colluding with China in the assassination of Hsiao.
The accusations come at a sensitive time in Taiwan, given the ongoing wave of political recalls targeting all KMT legislators. The recalls – on a scale unprecedented in the history of Taiwanese politics – are a reaction against political actions by the KMT in the past two years. Those actions include passing the largest set of budget cuts in the history of Taiwanese democratic politics, seeking to expand legislative powers to allow for new powers of investigation, and freezing the Constitutional Court to prevent it from making rulings.
Given the recall wave, the political dynamics in Taiwan are at present similar to an election year. The first wave of recall voting will take place on July 26.
It is possible that news of the plot against Hsiao will have a large impact on the recalls. Other incidents that happened shortly before past elections were thought to have affected the outcome, such as the Chou Tzu-yu incident ahead of the 2016 election that put Tsai Ing-wen into power.
For members of the pan-Green camp in Taiwan, Hsiao is a much-beloved figure. Apart from her diplomatic successes in Washington, Hsiao is seen as the spiritual successor to Tsai, and she is touted as a frontrunner for the Democratic Progressive Party's presidential candidate after Lai. Indeed, if it had been a different politician targeted – say, Tsai's first vice president, Chen Chien-jen – there would not have been such a large public response in Taiwan.
In turn, Hsiao appears to be an especially hated figure for Beijing. Hsiao is among the 'Taiwanese independence separatists' sanctioned by China and has often been targeted in condemnations. Beijing's special ire against Hsiao may come from her background: she was born in Japan to a Taiwanese and an American, and was educated in the United States. This background has sometimes led pan-Blue political opponents to frame Hsiao as, in fact, fundamentally an American with little stake in Taiwan.
To this extent, news of the plot – as well as the fact that the KMT was seeking to pass legislation for scenarios in which a vice-president-elect died in a similar time frame – adds to the speculation that the KMT was acting in collusion with Beijing.
It is hard to think that the KMT would have won a new set of presidential elections shortly after losing the 2024 election, particularly if a fatal car accident had made as beloved a figure as Hsiao into a political martyr not long before. The KMT's bill was not widely discussed at the time, overshadowed as it was by the party's attempt to expand legislative powers around the time of Hsiao's trip. At the same time, the DPP has increasingly accused the KMT of pursuing a Chinese stratagem in the last two years – by engaging in a political strategy that aims to reshape the division of powers among Taiwan's three major branches of government to privilege the only branch of government the KMT controls, the legislature.
Many accusations from the pan-Green camp focus on trips to China by KMT caucus leader Fu Kun-chi, who is often seen as the architect of the KMT's actions in the legislature. Fu is accused of acting on Chinese stratagems, as well as receiving kickbacks from China; he is currently under investigation for potentially receiving merchandise from China to use in campaigns. Fu sparked controversy in March for having traveled to Hong Kong to meet with Chinese government officials, while trying to hide his trip through social media posts that showed him in Taiwan. Fu's secret trip was outed by Legislative Yuan President Han Kuo-yu, a fellow member of the KMT, for reasons that are not clear.
Fu is also a graduate of Jinan University in Guangzhou, one of the Chinese universities that the Taiwanese Ministry of Education has classified as a United Front-affiliated institution. This in itself has become an object of controversy: some reports state that Fu holds a doctorate from Jinan University, but he has downplayed his time at Jinan University when questioned, claiming to have only spent a few months at the institution.
Amid the brewing controversy, which is starting to impact the KMT, it remains to be seen how the car crash incident impacts the recalls. Certainly the release of such information by Czech military intelligence could have not have occurred at a worse time for the KMT.