In January 1988, one of Taiwan’s most experienced nuclear engineers deserted to the United States after providing crucial information on an ultra-secret program that would change the Taiwan history course.
Colonel Chang Hsien-Yi was a prominent figure in Taiwan’s nuclear weapons project, a secret well kept between the 1960s and 1980s, while Taipepe ran to develop his first nuclear bomb to accompany China.
Chang Hsien-Yi was also a CIA informator and revealed the Taiwan Secret Nuclear program to the United States, his nearest ally, providing information that eventually led the Americans to press Taiwan to end the program-which, according to nuclear proliferation experts, was close to the conclusion.
Although some critics claim that Chang has betrayed his homeland and weakened Taipé’s ability to dissuade a possible Chinese invasion, Chang told CNN in a rare interview that he still believes he made the right decision.
“There was no betrayal,” he tells CNN from his home in Idaho, where he moved with his family.
“I decided to provide information to the CIA because I thought it would be good for the people of Taiwan,” says the 81 -year -old man. “Yes, there was political struggle between China and Taiwan, but developing any kind of lethal weapon was, for me, nonsense.”
Chang’s story features similarities to that of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israelite complainant who exposed his clandestine nuclear program to the world. But while Vanunu made the situation public, Chang’s complaint was made secret and without any worse.
Taiwan’s nuclear ambitions
In 1964, just 15 years after the end of the Chinese civil war with the victory of the communists, who left Chiang Kai -Shek nationalists only with Taiwan control, Beijing successfully tested a nuclear weapon – something that left the government in Taipé deeply restless, with fear that one day he was used against the island.
Two years later, Chiang launched a clandestine project to launch the technical bases of nuclear weapons development for the next seven years. The Chungshan Scientific Research Institute, under the Ministry of Defense, led the project, and that’s when Chang began working as an army captain a year later.
It was chosen for advanced nuclear energy formation, which included internships in the US. After studying physics and nuclear science in Taiwan, he attended the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
Despite Taipei’s official statements that nuclear investigation was for peaceful purposes only, Chang said students sent to the US know very well what their true mission was: learning skills for weapons development.
“We knew exactly – even if it wasn’t written – we knew what we were going to do, which area we should focus on,” says Chang. “We were enthusiastic and focused on completing the work,” he adds, also revealing: “We devoted entirely to the area that had been attributed to us, with the aim of learning as much as possible.”
While in Oak Ridge, Chang recalls that the CIA already showed interest in itself. “In 1969 or 1970, I remember receiving a call,” he recalls. The interlocutor said he was “from a company interested in the nuclear energy sector … and offered to take me to lunch.” “At the time I said I wasn’t interested because I had a specific mission. But I didn’t know it was Cia; I only realized it years later.”
Chiang Kai-Shek first launched a project to establish the foundations for the development of nuclear weapons in the 1960s (Associated Press)
American suspicions
In 1977, a year after obtaining a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Chang returned to Taiwan. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and led the development of computational codes for simulation of nuclear explosions at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (Iner), a national laboratory that, under civil pretexts, secretly advanced in the development of weapons.
Taiwanese leaders faced a delicate balance: the US firmly opposed new nuclear weapon programs in the world, and Taipe could not alienate its most important ally. Although the US had the nuclear dissuasion to face China, they also adopted a non -proliferation policy.
At the time, Taiwan was not the prosperous democracy that is today. It was a developing economy under the authoritarian regime of the Chinese nationalist party (Kuomintang), which maintained a UN seat until 1971 and formal diplomatic relations with the US until 1979.
To minimize the risk of its nuclear ambition to be exposed, the island only sought to secretly establish the ability to produce nuclear weapons quickly without building an arsenal.
“Taiwan’s covers were incredibly effective,” said David Albright, a nuclear proliferation expert and author of ‘Taiwan’s Forere Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Made’ (the former Taiwan Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons at Free Translation).
“They always insisted that the investigation was only for civil purposes … American responsible did not know how to pierce this facade.” But the risk of nuclear conflagration with China weighed on Chang. Deng Xiaoping, Chinese leader from 1978, warned that if Taiwan acquired nuclear weapons, China would respond hard. “I think they spoke seriously,” recalls Chang. “I believed it.”
“I didn’t want any conflict with the mainland China,” he says, also, also stiving that “using any kind of chemical or nuclear weapon… It’s nonsense for me. I believe we are all Chinese, and that makes no sense.”
So when CIA agents approached him again on a US trip in 1980, Chang agreed to talk. “They said, ‘We know him, and we are interested in themselves,’ and we had a conversation,” he says, adding that Americans subjected him to a rigorous polygrade test to ensure that he was not a double agent. It helped the CIA with occasional tasks before becoming informator in 1984.
Chang at his former home in Taiwan in 1979 with his daughter, Ann. (Courtesy of Chang Hsien-Yi)
For the next four years, an CIA agent, identified only as “Mark”, was with Chang of a few months in a safe houses in Taipei, including a condominium near the famous Shilin night night market.
In these meetings, the CIA asked him to confirm information, report recent projects from Iner (Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Taiwan’s Nuclear Energy Research Institute) and photographed sensitive documents.
“All conversations were very professional. He used pencils and notes to record my answers. (…) Guarantee whenever they would do everything to keep me and my family safe,” says Chang.
Chernobyl’s disaster in 1986 in Ukraine reinforced Chang’s conviction that it was imperative to stop Taiwan’s nuclear program. That same year, Vas publicly revealed details of the Israeli nuclear program, delivering evidence to British media, which caused an international scandal. He was then kidnapped by Mossad agents, tried in Israel and spent years in prison.
A NEW CHAPTER OF LIFE
Chang’s life – and his wife and three children – changed dramatically in January 1988, when the CIA withdrew them to the US. At that time, President Ronald Reagan’s administration had enough evidence and took advantage of the death of President Chiang Ching-Kuo-son of Chiang Kai-Shek-to press his reformist successor Lee Teng-Hui to collaborate.
David Albright said Chang was the most crucial informator for the US to end the Taiwan program. “The United States had played the cat and mouse with Taiwan for years,” he said. “Chang assured that the US had blunt evidence that Taiwan could not deny … and allowed to directly confront the government.”
In the months following Chang’s departure, the US sent experts to dismantle a plutonium separation center – an installation designed to extract nuclear weapons material. The team also supervised the removal of heavy water (used as nuclear reactors) and irradiated fuel, which can be reprocessed to produce nuclear weapons.
Chang was declared wanted in Taiwan. The warrant expired in 2000, but never returned to the island, telling CNN that he did not know how he would be received. The presidential office and the Taiwan Ministry of Defense refused to comment.
Hero or traitor?
To this day, Chang’s decision to collaborate with CIA remains controversial in Taiwan, which in the following decades has become a full democracy and an economic and industrial power.
But tensions with China persist. Taipei has faced growing military pressure from Beijing, who today has the largest army in the world and has been more aggressive in his territorial claims over Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party promised to take Taiwan by force if necessary, although he never ruled the island.
Beijing overcomes Taiwan’s Armed Forces by spending about 13 times more than in defense. Some argue that if Taiwan had managed to acquire nuclear weapons, they could have served as a final deterrent – as argued with Ukraine, which might not have been invaded if the Soviet nuclear arsenal had kept.
Chang shopping with his wife in Washington, United States, after his desertion from Taiwan. (Courtesy of Chang Hsien-Yi)
Some Taiwanese criticize Chang, saying that it was not to decide, alone, that the island would be better without a nuclear dissuasion.
“I believe he is a traitor,” says Alexander Huang, professor of strategic studies at Tamkang University, because weapons “could have been a useful tool for negotiating a more favorable diplomatic result” with Beijing.
But Su Tzu-Yun, director of the Taiwan National Defense and Security Institute, states that the absence of nuclear weapons did not severely affect the island’s modern defense, as accuracy ammunition can meet objectives similar to those of tactical nuclear weapons. “The Taiwanese government believed that if China landed in Taiwan, it could use tactical nuclear weapons to eliminate invasive troops,” he says. “But in its absence we can use missiles and other weapons of precision.”
Taiwan buys these weapons from the US, which – although they ended the nuclear program – remain their main military partner, providing ammunition, training and defense systems.
In addition to weaponry, the island has what many consider a more effective deterrent than nuclear bombs. In 1987 – just a year before the program end – businessman Morris Chang founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which today produces about 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips for companies such as Apple and Nvidia.
Taiwan’s central role in the global semiconductor supply chain, some observers say, would be sufficient to dissuade China of launching an invasion – the so -called “silicon shield.”
Albright, who extensively investigated the Taiwanese program, also believes that nuclear success would not have benefited the island. “I think I would have increased the military risk of a Chinese attack,” he says. And the US could have responded by “reducing their safety commitment or limiting military aid” after knowing Taiwan’s abilities.
As for Chang Hsien-Yi, which became a Christian and likes to play golf, while working partially on a nuclear security consultant, he continues to believe that the decision he made four decades was the correct one.
“Perhaps it was good for the people of Taiwan. At least we didn’t provoke mainland China to start an aggressive war against Taiwa,” Chang says. “I did what I did with quiet conscience, there was no betrayal – at least, not for myself.”
