Moscow plots to cause trouble in Taiwan Strait - media

That's according to a Taiwan's CNA report posted on Nov 29.

A source in the intelligence community of a European country said that one of the main tasks of a high-level official sent to the Russian Embassy in Beijing this summer is to collect intelligence information and study potential conflict factors in the Taiwan Strait, and to catalyze the escalation when the right time comes.

The source told the Central News Agency that Moscow is trying to stimulate, manipulate, or force Beijing to determine that it has to take more radical measures in the Taiwan Strait in order to "protect China's own interests" through covert or indirect means, including using the power of a third party.

Moscow's ultimate goal is to make the United States unable to effectively respond to Russia's continued destruction of peace and stability in Europe and other places because it has to respond to "trouble in the Taiwan Strait."

According to intelligence information, relevant Russian officials stationed in China are experts on China affairs. They have worked for many years under Sergei Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and before being sent to China, they had worked in different countries in the Asia-Pacific region under the diplomatic cover.

Intelligence data show that the China-stationed Russian official supervises a whole group and that some of its members pose as journalists.