New | Taiwan and mainland China's spy swap a sign of how far cross-strait ties have improved under Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou's rule
First cross-strait swap of three agents likely a favour to conclude Ma Ying-jeou's presidency during which ties have improved, analyst says
A swap between Beijing and Taipei of three jailed spies - announced yesterday, just weeks after the two sides' leaders met at a historic summit - is testament to Taiwan's improved ties with the mainland under Ma Ying-jeou's presidency, analysts said.
Beijing released Colonel Zhu Gongxun and Colonel Xu Changguo of Taiwan's Military Intelligence who had held behind bars for more than nine years, after Taiwan gave advance parole to mainland spy Li Zhichao, a statement from Ma's office said.
The news comes less than a month after Ma and President Xi Jinping met in Singapore on November 7. It was the first meeting between the two sides' leaders in 66 years after the Communist Party defeated the Kuomintang, which fled to Taiwan, during the Chinese civil war in 1949.
Zhu and Xu were returned to Taiwan in mid-October, Taiwan's defence ministry said. It was the first time the two sides had officially exchanged their captives.
"This is based on a mutual goodwill gesture delivered by the Ma-Xi meeting," Ma's spokesman, Charles Chen, said.
There are more than 100 Taiwanese spies imprisoned on the mainland, among whom Zhu and Xu were the highest-ranked. The most senior mainland spy in Taiwan, Major General Lo Hsien-chen, was still serving out his life sentence, Taiwanese newspaper reported.
Beijing still sees the self-ruled island as a "renegade province" to be reunited, by force if necessary. It had in 1996 threatened the island's first democratic elections with a missile drill in the strait.
But cross-strait tensions largely eased after the Beijing-friendly Ma took office in 2008.
"The [spy] swap is a natural fruit of the peaceful development of cross-strait relations over the past years," said professor Zhang Tongxin of Renmin University in Beijing.
But Arthur Ding Shu-fan, a professor at Taiwan's National Chengchi University, said the move was unlikely to do much to improve Beijing's image on the island amid mounting anti-mainland sentiment.
This was because the mainland's missiles remained aimed at the island and Beijing was still suppressing Taiwan's participation in international organisations, he said.
Moreover, Ma's term as president will end in a few weeks, with the pro-independence opposition Democratic Progressive Party tipped to win the January presidential elections. Beijing probably would not grant DPP presidential front runner Tsai Ing-wen the favour of freeing Taiwanese agents, Ding said.
"[Mainland] China clearly distrusts the DPP, although they both maintain some flexibility," he said. "[The spy swap move] is more like a conclusion to Ma's reign."
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For decades, both sides have sent spies across the strait.
People's Liberation Army Major General Liu Liankun was the highest-ranked mainland military officer convicted for spying for Taiwan.
Liu was executed in 1999 after it was discovered he had revealed confidential information to then-Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui. He had told Lee that the missiles Beijing test-fired during the 1996 crisis were not armed. Four other Taiwanese agents were also implicated.
