Li Ao the Spy: The CCP's Boomerang
Li Ao the Spy: The CCP's Boomerang
Li Ao's life was the Chinese Communist Party's most successful infiltration operation in the realm of language. He appeared as a "rebel," yet used seemingly free language to conceal the deepest infiltration by the Party. His words were packaged as "independent thinking" and "critical spirit," but all his logic invisibly provided external justification for the Party—a kind of "anti-establishment establishment language."
Li Ao was not an isolated individual. He came from a family of wandering scholars—families that moved between the Republic of China and the Cold War, unwilling to sacrifice for beliefs yet refusing complete corruption, cleverly seeking warmth between power and power. His father was a literatus in the "old system," educated in both Soviet-style propaganda and May Fourth radicalism; Li Ao inherited that mixed character Liu Zhongjing called "wandering scholar virtue": clever, ironic, without responsibility. The Party needed exactly this kind of person—clever enough to confuse friend and foe, empty enough to abandon principles.
On Taiwan's political stage, Li Ao was never for democracy, but for creating illusions. He pretended to attack the KMT, pretended to attack the DPP, yet at crucial moments, he paved the way for the Party's "third-party narrative." He logically dismantled Taiwan independence, yet never questioned the legitimacy of the CCP regime; he could attack all Taiwanese as "mistaking thieves for ancestors," but he never directly questioned the legality of that "ancestor." He appeared anti-Chiang, but was anti-Chiang and not anti-CCP; he appeared to mock the DPP, but actually provided the Party with the most convenient Taiwan discourse template.
On the surface, he attacked Taiwan independence as false independence—"constantly demanding independence, yet daring not to hold a referendum, not to amend the constitution, not to bear consequences"; But this sentence turned into the Party's boomerang: "You are false unificationists. If you have the guts, unify. Do you dare?" Unification isn't achieved by shouting. You don't dare open up, don't dare vote, don't dare let the people speak; you want unification, yet lack the courage to let people say "no." Li Ao's statement that "independence only counts if it can be implemented" now reflects back—unification also only counts if it can be implemented; unification through slogans, military exercises, missiles replacing popular will is called self-deception.
He attacked the DPP: "mass rallies are the least rational, the demagogic tool of dictatorships"; Now, this sentence's shadow falls on Beijing's squares—mass rallies, synchronized cheers, banners, choral singing, all becoming ritualistic demagoguery. He attacked the DPP as "using democracy against democracy," but today's system is "using people's democratic dictatorship against democracy." He mocked Taiwan's mass rallies, while the CCP's mass rallies are larger, more institutionalized, more numb. Li Ao used language to expose Taiwan's hypocrisy, yet didn't realize he was exposing a mirror—that mirror now reflects in the mainland's propaganda system.
Li Ao said: "Taiwanese can find a thousand reasons to support independence; Mainlanders can find a thousand and one reasons to oppose independence." The logical structure of this sentence—resolving conflict of positions in a rationally neutral tone—is exactly the CCP's most skilled "neutralization technique." It pretends to be neutral, actually flattening moral boundaries. Li Ao turned Taiwan independence, the DPP, and the KMT all into jokes, while the CCP is the one laughing last. He thought he was "observing," but observation is precisely the form of infiltration.
Li Ao often quoted Confucius: "As for me, who do I praise, who do I criticize?" But he had already chosen his camp—the camp that allowed him to "criticize others." He could speak freely in Taiwan, yet never spoke a word of truth before Beijing's walls. In his final years, he even publicly praised the Party as "great," lauded Deng Xiaoping's "crossing the river by feeling the stones," and said "the Party increased average Chinese lifespans by thirty years." He thought this was rationality, but it was spy-style softening—using statistics to cover tyranny, using utility to cover massacres.
He attacked Taiwan for "morality being lower than law," calling it social rupture; But today's China is precisely the perfect example of morality as decoration and law as tool. He attacked Taiwan as "eating someone's rice while cursing them," calling it symbiotic parasitism; But the CCP is the world's largest parasite—sustaining itself on the free world's technology, markets, and currency, yet biting back, claiming "indigenous control." He attacked Taiwan's "reckless democracy," but China's autocracy is precisely "planned madness." Every absurdity Li Ao exposed exists multiplied in the Party.
His language logic was imperialist—using "practice tests truth" to judge political legitimacy. Then let practice test: let Taiwan vote freely once, let the mainland vote freely once; Let people speak in an environment without fear; let votes, not missiles, define "nation." If the CCP truly believes it is "the people's choice," it should dare face choice. Otherwise, this "unification" is only illusion, order maintained by fear.
Li Ao once said: "Taiwan independence is just a dream; some dreams can be dreamed, some cannot." This sentence equally applies to the CCP: "Unification is just a dream; some dreams can be awakened from, some are destined to drown you." He mocked the "false independence" hypocrisy in Taiwan, yet didn't see himself as a "false rebel." His life was a sample of Communist spy culture in free discourse: using language to disguise criticism, using irony to conceal faith, using rebellion to maintain rule.
The Li Ao family had complex political connections from early on. Li Ao's father Li Zhangqi had long contact with the CCP's propaganda system in the late stages of the War of Resistance, maintaining secret contact after moving to Taiwan; Li Ao himself participated in the leftist publication "Wenxing" as a student in the 1950s, later arrested for suspected Communist involvement—superficially "anti-Communist," actually completing identity cleansing. He survived the authoritarian era not by luck, but by background. He wasn't an isolated talent, but a variant of the system, an extension of the red infiltration network.
His entire life was spent "opposing"—opposing the KMT, opposing the DPP, opposing America, opposing dogmatism; But he alone did not oppose the CCP. He attacked Taiwanese as "cowardly," yet never dared say the words that truly required courage. He dared attack Chiang Kai-shek, attack Chen Shui-bian, attack Lee Teng-hui, yet never attacked Mao Zedong, never attacked Xi Jinping. He used language to build an "anti-establishment safe zone"—everyone thought he was a rebel, but he was the establishment's buffer valve. In Taiwan's free environment, he performed criticism; before Beijing's cameras, he performed loyalty.
He called the Party "great," called Deng Xiaoping "correcting mistakes meritoriously," called the constitution "freer than Taiwan"—these words reveal he wasn't tamed, but voluntarily submitted. He thought he was using reason to balance cross-strait relations, but was actually using reason to whitewash totalitarianism. This isn't a "free intellectual," but a typical cultural spy: implanting one's own ideology in the enemy's language, causing the other side to lose resistance in what they believed was free discourse.
Li Ao's end did not come in the year of his death, but in the moment the Party used his words against themselves. His logic mocking Taiwan independence—"You don't dare independence, don't dare vote, don't dare bear responsibility"— is now exactly the echo the Party most fears hearing: "You don't dare unification, don't dare openness, don't dare let the people speak."
Language is a boomerang. Li Ao used it to strike Taiwan, but it ultimately struck Communism. He died in an era where false became truth, and his soul was devoured by his favorite rhetoric. Li Ao was not a forgotten writer, but an exposed tool. He thought he was "deconstructing on a branch," yet didn't see himself hanging from that branch. That branch is called the Communist Party.