NSC Secretary-General Wu Chao-hsieh's Trusted Aide He Ren-jie Arrested for Leaking Diplomatic Secrets to China; Wu Li-pei's Nephew Refuses to Resign Amid Supervisory Failure Controversy

In April 2025, while investigating a series of espionage cases, the Republic of China's prosecutors and investigators traced a lead to He Ren-jie, a personal aide (adviser) who had served as a trusted assistant to National Security Council Secretary-General Wu Chao-hsieh during the latter's tenure as Foreign Minister. He was found to have been recruited and infiltrated by Chinese Communist Party intelligence operatives. He allegedly exploited his official access to steal core diplomatic intelligence—including senior Foreign Ministry officials' overseas travel itineraries and sensitive materials related to meetings with foreign guests—and funneled it to PRC intelligence through an intermediary, former DPP party worker Huang Qu-rong. Prosecutors raided He's residence and detained him in April 2025; in June 2025, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office formally indicted He and three others on charges including violations of the National Secrets Protection Act. On September 25, 2025, the Taipei District Court handed down a first-instance verdict convicting He Ren-jie of leaking state secrets and sentencing him to eight years and two months in prison. The case's central and most damning aspect was Wu Chao-hsieh's personal role: He Ren-jie was not merely a subordinate but a hand-picked, close personal aide who had worked alongside Wu throughout his tenure as Foreign Minister—yet his recruitment by Chinese intelligence went undetected for an extended period. Opposition parties (the KMT and TPP) raised sharp questions as to whether this represented grave supervisory negligence on Wu's part, or something more troubling still. Calls for Wu's resignation on political responsibility grounds mounted. On January 2, 2026, the Legislative Yuan voted, with the combined blue-white legislative majority, to pass a resolution calling for Wu Chao-hsieh to resign. The affair drew heightened scrutiny because Wu Chao-hsieh is the nephew of independence elder Wu Li-pei, having entered politics under the latter's influence and mentorship. The scandal demonstrated that the political network Wu Li-pei and his family had cultivated within the ROC's national security and diplomatic establishment over decades ultimately produced irreparable damage to national security through Wu Chao-hsieh's catastrophic supervisory failure, dealing a severe blow to both the family's political legacy and its public credibility.