Taiwan launches tip website to recruit Chinese intelligence sources

Taiwan moved its intelligence fight with China onto a new digital front, opening a website meant to draw tips from Chinese nationals inside mainland China and abroad. The National Security Bureau said the channel is designed as a secure way to submit intelligence-related information and to widen Taiwan’s sources on China’s political, military, economic and social developments.

The bureau launched the site on June 14 at report.nsb.gov.tw and paired it with a one-minute AI-generated video titled Change. In the video, a Chinese civil servant watches colleagues come under investigation and be removed from office before deciding to use the new channel, a message aimed squarely at disillusioned officials, businesspeople and other would-be informants. Taiwan’s security officials said the effort is meant to be practical, not symbolic, and that it draws on similar outreach tactics used by intelligence agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel.

The website also lays out Chinese-language security instructions for potential sources. It advises users to avoid Chinese devices, factory-reset phones, use VPNs, connect through Wi-Fi without real-name authentication and browse in incognito mode. Taiwan has blocked the site inside China, but many Chinese users can still reach blocked services by using VPNs, which is one reason the bureau appears to be building a channel that assumes surveillance, filtering and digital risk from the start.

The launch comes as both sides of the strait have intensified espionage counterintelligence efforts. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said in January 2025 that prosecutions in Taiwan for Chinese espionage rose to 64 in 2024 from 16 in 2021, with 48 in 2023 and 10 in 2022, and that military personnel were a major target. China has also used tip-off mechanisms of its own, including an email address announced in 2024 for reporting alleged crimes by Taiwan “separatists.”

For Taipei, the gamble is that a broader, more secure reporting channel can convert political discontent and bureaucratic fear in China into usable intelligence. For Beijing, it adds another layer to a long-running security contest that now stretches beyond military drills and formal diplomacy into the realm of online persuasion, source protection and covert escalation.