Chen Pokong

The other is aimed at the Chinese diaspora, whose gatherings are tracked and reported back to Beijing.

According to expert Chen Pokong, to carry out these two jobs, Beijing works through two kinds of people, trained professionals and informants.

Chen helped organize the nineteen eighty-nine democracy protests in Guangzhou, China, and was jailed twice before his exile to the US in nineteen ninety-six.

He's an author and longtime commentator for Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, and he has spent three decades inside the overseas Chinese dissident community.

Below the legal line.

To carry out those two jobs, Beijing works through two kinds of people: trained professionals and informants, Chen Pokong told The Epoch Times.

Chen helped organize the 1989 democracy protests in Guangzhou, China, and was jailed twice before his exile to the United States in 1996.

An author and longtime commentator for Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, he has spent three decades inside the overseas Chinese dissident community.

He was a recruited agent, paid, run by a handler, and given assignments, and what Beijing wanted from him was more people.

Informants are everywhere: in the Chinese community, at democracy movement meetings, at all kinds of academic conferences, in all kinds of university forums.

Chen Pokong, Chinese dissident author and commentator.

He also sold reports to a Wuhan group seeking information on American technology and the US Department of Justice and to an expert who could help the group engage in cyber espionage.

Taiwan has rejected the regime's claim and maintains de facto independence with its own military, constitution, and democratically elected government.

Shen Ming-shi, a research fellow at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, and US-based Chinese author and political commentator Chen Pokong told The Epoch Times that the drills could be a show of force directed at influencing Taiwan's upcoming November 28th election.

They said the exercises were unlikely to have a substantial effect on the military situation across the strait.

"The CCP has conducted even more intense operations around Taiwan before," Chen Pokong said.

"It has done everything, including military exercises to encircle Taiwan, but ultimately returned empty-handed." Shen said that the CCP routinely uses its military activities to push its political message that there is no Taiwanese independence under its One China principle.

"The drills allow Beijing to claim, both domestically and internationally, that it has responded firmly to Lai's speech," Shen said.

It also urged Beijing to stop drills that could heighten cross-strait tensions, according to Taiwan's National News Agency CNA, citing the ministry's press release.

Military pressure stops short of open conflict.