Taiwan’s Underworld, Part 2: The Chinese Communist Party and United Front Work

This article is the second in a series on Taiwan’s underworld. Part one is available here.

Cheng Ming-kun (鄭銘坤), vice chairman of Jenn Lann Temple (鎮瀾宮) in Taiwan’s Taichung County, stood before an offering table on a frigid February day in Tianjin, in the north of China. It was 2023, and Zheng was leading a delegation of 39 Taiwanese to Tianjin Tianhou Temple (天津天后宮), which celebrates the sea goddess Mazu. He praised the local Tianjin Chinese Communist Party (CCP, 中國共產黨) officials for their support of cross-Strait exchanges and met with Ji Guoqiang (冀國強), the head of the Tianjin Municipal United Front Work Department. (1) Cheng is not merely a Mazu devotee, but also the leader of the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship (台灣媽祖聯誼會) and closely associated with a reputed gang boss in Taiwan. During Cheng’s visit to Tianjin, his delegation stopped at the Mazu Cultural Park (媽祖文化園). The elaborate site had been developed a few years earlier by a subsidiary of Redco, a Chinese construction company that employs Cheng Ming-kun as a director. (2)

Cheng’s engagement is representative of the tangled network of relationships that Taiwan’s underworld maintains with CCP actors in China. CCP officials make frequent use of gangs and gang-controlled temples to execute political warfare against Taiwan. United front work (統戰工作)—a key component of the CCP’s political warfare efforts–involves the channeling of incentives to influential actors within communities whose support or acquiescence the CCP needs. In the words of Chen Deming (陳德銘) of the united front-affiliated Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS, 海峽兩岸關係協會), the Taiwanese who are friendly to Beijing are due a “special form of compensation.” Organized crime is an excellent conduit for united front work against Taiwan. It has offered the CCP plausible deniability for its political warfare, access to illegal services, and influence within grassroots and religious communities in Taiwan. Taiwan’s gangs do not work for free, and rarely out of ideological conviction. The gangs that participate in united front work do so for personal profit, prestige, and the promise of safe haven in China. This article will survey two such influence networks connected to Taiwan’s organized crime organizations: the  China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP, 中華統一促進黨) under Chang An-lo (張安樂), and the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship led by the Jenn Lann Temple board.

Incipient Cross-Strait Ties

Even though Taiwan’s gangs originate from the disparate ethnic groups of Chinese provinces, it was not until the tail-end of the Kuomintang’s (KMT, 國民黨) martial law era that Taiwanese organized crime re-established a foothold in Chinese society. Several crackdowns on gang activity in the eighties and nineties by the KMT government forced Taiwanese fugitives to enter the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Philippines, and continental Southeast Asian states. High-profile Taiwanese fugitives, such as Lo Fu Chu (羅福助) of the Celestial Alliance (天道盟) and Chang An-lo of the Bamboo Union (竹聯幫), found a surprisingly permissive environment in the PRC. As Ko-Lin Chin (陳國霖) documents in the authoritative Heijin, local CCP officials did not consider Taiwanese gangsters to be a threat to public order as long as they avoided serious criminal activity in the PRC. Crimes directed at Taiwan were, and are, permitted. 

The Bamboo Union, reportedly Taiwan’s largest gang, operates major scam operations directed at Taiwan from locations in the PRC. These scam operations utilize young Taiwanese who emigrate to the PRC under the guise of gainful employment. CCP local officials have regarded Taiwanese gangsters as useful sources of investment, and benefited from kickbacks. In the words of Chang An-lo—a “mastermind” of the Bamboo Union gang who resided in Shenzhen, China, for many years as a fugitive—Taiwan’s gangsters spent most of their money on “two types of people: xiaojie (小姐, sex workers) and lingdao (領導, local officials).” Moreover, local CCP officials defer to the PRC central government on policy related to Taiwanese gangsters. A Fuzhou Public Security Bureau official shared that “Generally, we wait for orders from Beijing on how to handle the brothers (兄弟, gangsters).” Unfettered by law enforcement, Taiwanese gangs—and in particular the Bamboo Union—have grown into the most powerful criminal organizations in China and wider East Asia. 

The White Wolf and the China Unification Promotion Party

Chang An-lo (right in blue jacket) poses with a supporter (Source: Wikimedia Commons) 

Chang An-lo, also known as the “White Wolf” (白狼), is one of the most well-known reputed gang bosses in Taiwan. Chang An-lo was an early leader in the Bamboo Union—which is dominated by mainlander (外省) Taiwanese—before his 10-year incarceration in the United States on a drug smuggling conviction. Chang returned to Taiwan in the 1990s before escaping to China after another criminal charge. He lived comfortably in Shenzhen alongside fellow fugitives between 1996 and 2013. As J. Michael Cole has written in a 2021 paper, Chang cultivated relationships with important CCP officials during his time in China, including Hu Shiying (胡石英)—the son of former CCP propaganda chief Hu Qiaomu (胡喬木) and a reported “member of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s ‘close circle.’” 

Chang founded the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP, 中華統一促進黨) (also known as the Unionist Party), in 2005 while residing in the PRC. The CUPP’s activity expanded when Chang returned to Taiwan in 2013. After an immediate detention, Chang was released on bail and registered the CUPP as an official political party in Taiwan. Widely suspected to be a front organization for the Bamboo Union, the CUPP has organized events hosting criminal leaders in Taiwan. The CUPP has never seriously pursued electoral success—instead, it has focused on engagement with grassroots communities in Taiwan, including Daoist temples. The CUPP has provided three essential functions on behalf of CCP political warfare: (1) facilitating clandestine visits of CCP officials to Taiwan; (2) illegally channeling donations from the PRC to Taiwanese grassroots communities; and (3) intimidating and assaulting activists and opponents of unification policy in Taiwan. 

Michael Cole has documented how Taiwanese prosecutors have questioned Chang An-le and his son, Chang Wei (張瑋), in relation to a scheme that forged travel documents for CCP officials to enter Taiwan disguised as tourists. The investigation covered 30 travel agencies, including the Huaxi Dadi Travel Service operated by Chang Wei. The Taiwanese investigators counted between 2,000 and 5,000 illegal visits by CCP officials between January 2017 and June 2019 on travel documents forged by these tourism agencies. Additionally, investigators linked some of these visitors to China’s intelligence agencies and the United Front Work Department. 

Even before this investigation, the Hauxi Dadi Travel Service had been the subject of an August 2019 criminal charge against Chang An-le and CUPP associates. At that time, prosecutors uncovered irregular money transfers from a sports apparel company—owned by Chang—based in Guangdong Province, China, to Huaxi Dadi Travel Services accounts. Huaxi Dadi Travel Services also transferred money several times to Chang family personal accounts. Prosecutors charged Chang and CUPP associates with receiving illicit political donations, among other things. 

Chang and the CUPP are well-known for generously donating food and money to grassroots communities, including local charity groups and temples. Temple donations are largely unregulated and are an established method for securing political support from devotee communities. After police raids on the CUPP headquarters and Chang’s home, the CUPP admitted that it received funds from the PRC. It denied, however, that the PRC government was the source. Besides cash transfers to local communities, CUPP members have openly harassed and assaulted activists protesting CCP policy. In January 2017, Chang Wei—the son of Chang An-lo—attempted to physically assault dissident Hong Kong lawmakers (such as Nathan Law (羅冠聰)) at Taoyuan International Airport. In September of that year, Chang Wei also directed CUPP members in a violent assault on student protestors during the “Sing! China: Shanghai-Taipei Music Festival” at National Taiwan University. CUPP has mobilized groups to intimidate participants in major protests directed at the PRC, such as the 2014 Sunflower Movement or Taiwanese students’ 2015 occupation of the Ministry of Education (MOE, 教育部).

The CUPP’s overt links to the PRC are a hindrance to its political warfare activities, given that the party is under constant scrutiny from the Taiwanese authorities. Perhaps most consequential is the party’s grassroots engagement with temple communities in Taiwan. However, the CUPP’s outreach is eclipsed by the most significant player in cross-Strait religious exchanges: the Jenn Lann Temple board. 

Jenn Lann Temple and the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship

The Mazu Ancestral Temple courtyard in Meizhou, China (Source: Wikipedia). 

As explored in part one of this article series, the Jenn Lann Temple board—headed by the alleged gang boss Yen Ching-piao (顏清標)—is one the most politically powerful institutions in central Taiwan. The Jenn Lann Temple board organizes Taiwan’s largest religious event, the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage (大甲媽祖遶境進香), which draws millions of attendees each year. Yen, an alleged gang leader and convicted criminal, has used the platform of the Jenn Lann Temple board to establish influence over national politicians and to springboard his own political career. However, Yen delegates the handling of day-to-day temple management to his close associate and convicted smuggler Cheng Ming-kun (who aided him in ascending to the chairmanship of the Jenn Lann Temple board in 1999). Cheng, the subject of the vignette at the beginning of this piece, also serves as the chairman of the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship. The Taiwan Mazu Fellowship is the largest facilitator of cross-Strait religious exchanges and in 2010 comprised 60 Mazu temples across Taiwan. 

Jenn Lann Temple and the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship celebrate the sea goddess Mazu (媽祖), who is many ways the most culturally significant deity in Taiwan. Mazu, however, was born in a 10^th century fishing village in Fujian Province, China. A mystic who is credited with saving lives at sea, Mazu ascended to heaven at age 28 on the Fujianese island of Meizhou (湄洲島). Meizhou is the site of the Meizhou Ancestral Temple (天后宮湄洲祖廟), the “home” of Mazu and the most sacred place of the religious following. It is also the locus of the CCP’s efforts to translate Taiwanese religious fervor for Mazu into support for close cross-Strait ties and unification with China. 

In 2004, CCP officials and the Meizhou Ancestral Temple established the Chinese Mazu Culture Exchange Association (CMCEA, 中華媽祖文化交流協會). The CMCEA oversees 150 Mazu temples and organizations in the PRC and was headed by Zhang Kehui (張克輝), the former vice chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, 中國人民政治協商會議). The CPPCC is the principal organization of the PRC aimed at marshaling CCP-friendly actors to conduct political warfare in both the PRC and foreign societies. The Taiwan Mazu Fellowship and the CMCEA are close partners in cross-Strait religious exchanges. The CMCEA organizes Mazu-themed exchanges to disguise CCP officials’ visits to Taiwan, to which the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship and Jenn Lann Temple play host. Officials in the PRC’s Taiwan Affairs Office (中共中央臺灣工作辦公室) and ARATS personnel have entered Taiwan under the guise of religious tourism. In 2016, the ARATS chair Chen Deming visited Taiwan on such an exchange a month prior to the presidential election. In a closed door meeting with local leaders at Jenn Lann Temple, Chen called for communities to vote with “consideration on cross-Strait relations and make the best choice for that matter.” 

The Taiwan Mazu Fellowship also facilitates travel by Taiwanese devotee communities to Meizhou and other sites in the PRC. These tours are often tailored to attract public attention, with media in accompaniment and live streams of the proceedings. Besides Mazu-themed engagements, Taiwanese religious tour groups engage in shopping and sightseeing in the PRC. Tour participants have reported being added to WeChat and LINE chat groups that share information critical of the Democratic Progressive Party (民進黨), the Taiwanese political party favoring distance from the PRC. For the tour group leaders such as Cheng Ming-kun, the events offer opportunities to enhance connections, or “guanxi” (關係), with PRC officials and to gain access to lucrative development contracts. Developers in the PRC find it easier to win approval for Mazu-related projects if they apply with Taiwanese temple partners. It is unsurprising that the Chinese development company Redco, which counts Cheng Ming-kun as a shareholder and director, boasts of its ability to land Mazu-themed construction contracts in the PRC. (3) Hsun Chang (張珣) reports that members of the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship have invested in various infrastructure projects in Meizhou and Fujian. 

A common rebuttal to concerns regarding cross-Strait Mazu exchanges is that they are unsuccessful in encouraging support for closer cross-Strait relations among Taiwanese. However, a recent study by Sher Chien-Yuan (佘健源) et al. found that districts containing urban Mazu temples in Kaohsiung were more likely to support the more PRC-friendly KMT party than districts without Mazu temples. Though one may suggest that traditional religious conservatism explains this trend—rather than a desire for close relations with the PRC—the authors’ concurrent study of rural Mazu temples belies this claim. Communities around rural Mazu temples were less likely to vote for KMT candidates than urban ones. The authors argue that this is because the newer urban Mazu temples are more reliant on PRC religious exchanges to garner cash and devotees, whereas older rural temples have established streams of funding that allow them to forgo such exchanges. Meanwhile, districts containing temples to Guan Yu (關羽), another Daoist god, were no more likely to vote for the KMT. Guan Yu temples generally do not participate in religious exchanges with the PRC.

While cross-Strait Mazu exchanges may encourage Taiwanese support for closer ties with the PRC, this does not imply that the activity, and indeed the Mazu religion, erodes Taiwanese identity and elevates support for unification. Indeed, contrary to the CCP’s best efforts, many have observed that reverence for Mazu—and the splendid mass ceremonies that criss-cross the Taiwanese island—have actually incubated a sense of shared Taiwanese identity. Moreover, the actions of the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship do not implicate all Mazu temples in Taiwan in CCP united front work. Some Mazu temple networks have oriented themselves towards civic activism within the borders of Taiwan and eschewed association with PRC institutions, such as the Taiwan Golden Orchid Association of Temples (台灣寺廟金蘭會).

The main point: The CCP has effectively capitalized on certain Taiwanese gang members’ desire for prestige, personal profit, and safe havens to reach Taiwan’s grassroots and religious communities. The CUPP and the Taiwan Mazu Fellowship provide CCP actors with access to the Taiwanese population at a time when more overt engagements face growing restrictions. In return, reputed Taiwanese gangsters have benefitted from cash transfers and enhanced business opportunities in the PRC, as well as opportunities to raise their primacy within the community of Mazu temples. Because gang-related actors offer the CCP plausible deniability and religious cover for its united front work, Taiwanese government authorities have been ineffective at restricting this behavior. 

(1) This reference is drawn from a news article hosted on Baidu.com. Readers are advised to use a virtual private network (VPN) if clicking on this link. https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1758312740774927484&wfr=spider&for=pc.

(2) This reference is drawn from a company report hosted on a Hong Kong server. Readers are advised to use a virtual private network (VPN) if clicking on this link. https://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2014/0121/ltn20140121031.pdf. 

(3) Ibid.