Taiwanese spymaster looks back on killing that led to end of island’s martial law
- Death of writer Henry Liu in US sparked fury and eventually brought democracy to self-ruled island
- Incident was just one of many in a lifetime of secret service as deadly as any war
With a head of grey hair and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, the casually dressed Chen Fu-men looks like a grandfather next door. But in intelligence circles on the two rival sides of the Taiwan Strait, he is a well-known figure.
Chen’s involvement in the killing of a Taiwanese-American author 35 years ago shocked the United States, which angrily demanded that the self-ruled island hand over Chen and two others to the American justice system. The assassination also became one of the triggers for democratisation on the self-ruled island, which had been under authoritarian rule by Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo since 1949.
The author, Henry Liu, 51, a Taiwanese journalist who moved to the United States in 1967 and later became an American citizen, had published an unflattering biography of Chiang Ching-kuo and was an outspoken critic of Taiwan’s ruling party. Powerful officials in Taipei also believed that he was spying for the mainland.
In 1984, vice-admiral Wang Hsi-ling, the head of the island’s Military Intelligence Bureau, ordered his deputy Hu Yi-min and his top aide Chen to kill Liu, according to Chen.
Chen asked the leader of Taiwan’s notorious Bamboo Union gang, Chen Chi-li, to eliminate the journalist. In October, he and two other gangsters gunned down Liu in the garage of his northern California home.
The murder rocked the US, and its relations with Taiwan dropped to their lowest point after a furious State Department accused Taipei of sending killers to assassinate an American citizen. The FBI was involved in the search for suspects, and through a tapped phone traced a conversation between Wang and Chen Chi-li. Taiwanese authorities later arrested the gang leader and his aide.