Man Using Laptop at Taipei Main Station Suspected of Being Chinese Spy! Blue Camp Slams Lin Chuu-ying: 'Are Citizens Still Free to Use Phones?'

A man was recently photographed using a laptop on the metro platform at Taipei Main Station, with his screen displaying the simplified Chinese phrase '2nd Theater Photosynthesis System,' sparking online speculation that he might be a Chinese spy collecting intelligence in Taiwan. DPP legislator Lin Chuu-ying urged national security authorities to investigate, but the incident was later confirmed to be a false alarm.

In response, the Blue Camp's Facebook page 'Fengxiang 123' posted a critique questioning whether watching financial lectures or taking selfies could now be labeled as 'Chinese infiltration.' They asked Lin Chuu-ying and Shen Po-yang: Does 'Taipei Getting Smoother' mean automatically slapping national security labels on ordinary citizens?

According to the post, on August 29 at noon, a man was waiting for a friend on the Banan Line platform at Taipei Main Station and opened his laptop to listen to an online financial course. The instructor's group name was '2nd Theater Photosynthesis System,' which a bystander photographed and posted online. The image was reported to multiple agencies, including the National Police Agency, Criminal Investigation Bureau, Mainland Affairs Council, Immigration Agency, and the Investigation Bureau.

The next day, DPP legislator Lin Chuu-ying followed up with a post titled 'Possible Chinese Spy at Taipei Main Station,' calling for a thorough investigation by national security units. In response, the Xinyi Police Station formed a special task force, reviewed surveillance footage overnight, and located the individual by the morning of August 30. The conclusion: a 48-year-old man was simply listening to a lecture on compound interest. While vigilance against espionage is a shared consensus in Taiwan, the post questioned whether seeing a few simplified Chinese characters on a laptop screen should automatically qualify as 'suspected espionage.' If so, does Buffett become just a buffet vendor in the eyes of the 'Green Birds'?

'Fengxiang 123' further questioned: If watching a financial lecture on a laptop at Taipei Main Station is now 'suspected espionage,' then what does that make Lin Chuu-ying watching iQIYI in the Legislative Yuan? By her own standards, shouldn't she be the first one investigated? Lin expressed concern that someone might be recording crowd movements and activity patterns at Taipei Main Station, which could be used for attacks during wartime. But ironically, the person whose movements were fully documented that day was the citizen himself—what time he stood on which platform, what was on his screen—all captured in images and spread across the internet. The bystander took the photo, but it was the legislator who escalated it into a national security case.

This is not an isolated incident, the post noted. In June 2025, Kuo Yu-ching suspected someone of collecting children's facial data in a park and filmed a young person who was taking a selfie. The person immediately explained and showed their phone, but the video still ended up on Kuo's social media. One selfie, one financial lecture—following this logic, the only safe activity left for Taipei citizens might be browsing the DPP's Facebook page. In Taipei, taking selfies a little too long or having a complex laptop screen could turn anyone into a national security suspect overnight.

The post also directed questions at Shen Po-yang. First, he is a DPP-nominated Taipei mayoral candidate and a leading voice in the party's national security narrative. Second, Wei Chun-yu, producer of Lai Er School, faced a similar situation: after responding to Shen online, his personal information was publicly exposed by Shen, who labeled him as 'Chinese influence directly linked to the KMT headquarters,' partly because Wei's parents run businesses in mainland China and he studied there. Yet, external sources have also pointed out that Shen Po-yang's father has business ties with mainland China.

'Fengxiang 123' questioned: Should the standard 'contact with China equals suspicion' apply to one's own party members? Since Shen Po-yang wants to be Taipei's mayor, he must answer: When citizens take selfies or use laptops in public spaces, and are then photographed, publicly tried, and tagged with national security labels by politicians, does that align with his slogan 'Taipei Getting Smoother'? Taipei citizens don't have complicated demands—they simply want the freedom to use their phones and laptops in public without fear of surveillance.