TAIPEI, Taiwan—The indictment of Xu Chunying, a China-born woman who immigrated to Taiwan through marriage, has reignited concerns in Taiwan about Beijing’s infiltration campaign, after prosecutors charged her with violating the island’s anti-infiltration law for allegedly interfering in local elections under the direction of Chinese officials.

The case, announced by the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office on March 24, highlighted efforts by the Chinese regime to have China-born spouses gain political influence in Taiwan.

According to prosecutors, Xu, active in Taiwan as the head of a local new immigrants organization since 2016, allegedly sought to “leverage” her ability to “mobilize” Chinese spouses living on the island to pressure political parties into nominating individuals of her choosing to legislative at-large seats in Taiwan’s parliament.

Taiwan’s parliament, known as the Legislative Yuan, is made up of 113 seats, with 73 members elected from local districts and six reserved for indigenous communities. The remaining 34 are legislator-at-large seats proportionally allocated to political parties based on their share of the vote, with members drawn from party candidate lists.

Before legislative elections, political parties would release their lists of legislator-at-large candidates, hoping the names would attract voter support. The rankings on these lists are especially important—candidates at the top are considered safe because they are most likely to win seats based on projected vote shares.

Prosecutors said that Xu, despite having obtained Taiwan’s citizenship, allegedly continued to “pledge loyalty” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while interacting with Chinese officials. They were Yang Wentao, director of a service center that handles cross-strait marriages and families under China’s Ministry of Affairs, and Sun Xian, deputy head of the Shanghai branch of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang.

Prosecutors alleged that Xu, along with co-defendant Chung Chin-ming, regularly reported to the two Chinese officials on Taiwan’s political landscape, including elections, public opinion, key political figures, and internal party affairs.

Her communications between 2019 and 2025 were detailed in the indictment, according to local media that obtained a copy. In an April 2025 conversation, Xu and Sun discussed how Pa Chiung and others were aiming to “instigate public anger” to support recall votes targeting opposition lawmakers.

Pa Chiung is the alias of anti-CCP influencer Wen Tzu-yu, whose YouTube channel has more than 1.3 million followers.

In an interview with The Epoch Times on March 31, Wen said his name being mentioned in the conversation was a “form of recognition” that his actions had hindered the CCP’s efforts to infiltrate Taiwan.

In Taiwan, Wen is best known for his 2024 documentary that exposes China’s “united front” operations against Taiwan, featuring Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan, who was formerly pro-Beijing.

In November 2025, China’s municipal public security bureau in Quanzhou, a city in southern China’s Fujian Province, announced a bounty for Wen and Chen on suspicion of “inciting secession,” accusing them of spreading “anti-China” content on social media.

Infiltration

Currently, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the opposition are mired in a rare political crisis. The opposition, which consisted of the Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalist Party, and its much smaller ally, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has used its majority in parliament to block or stymie key government proposals, including the budget.

According to the indictment, Xu and Yang discussed the KMT’s list of legislative-at-large candidates for the island’s 2020 legislative elections in late 2019.

Xu also allegedly briefed Yang on the 2022 Taipei mayoral race and agreed to mobilize Chinese spouses to support independent candidate Huang Shan-shan, though she was a TPP member, the indictment said. Ultimately, Huang finished third in the race, behind KMT and DPP candidates.

Under Yang’s direction, Xu remained in contact with Huang, and the TPP eventually agreed to place Xu or another person she recommended on its party list of legislators-at-large for the 2024 elections, according to the indictment.

Eventually, Xu was not on the TPP list. Taiwan’s national media outlet, Central News Agency, reported in November 2023 that Xu had declined TPP’s invitation to be on the list.

Prosecutors also alleged that Xu provided fake employment documents beginning in December 2024 to enable Sun to enter Taiwan, falsely claiming he had no political ties in China and creating a fraudulent itinerary for his stay.

Wen said Beijing “really wanted to infiltrate” the TPP, a relatively new party established in 2019.

“For the Taiwan People’s Party, the biggest advantage at this stage may be gaining power—specifically, control of the central government. As a result, it may form alliances and draw on a wide range of different forces,” Wen told The Epoch Times.

“Right now, its main opponent is the Democratic Progressive Party. Even knowing that people like Hsu Chun-ying represent pro-unification positions, it doesn’t really matter—because its primary goal at this stage is to build a united front to bring down the Democratic Progressive Party.”

In Taiwan, several current and former soldiers have faced legal action for allegedly engaging in espionage on behalf of China. For example, a retired air force colonel was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023 for operating an espionage network on behalf of China.

Wen said the biggest threat is Beijing’s disinformation targeting the public, using fake accounts and popular video-sharing apps like Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, to spread misleading content.

“The CCP is particularly good at this. They may pretend to be supporters of different political parties, and then make some very extreme and exaggerated statements,” he stated. “The comments are designed to provoke; people would shoot back, and eventually, the battle gets out of control.

“When we want to trace it back to the source, it becomes impossible to find it.”