Pundits and Internet users have lambasted the Ministry of National Defense’s “surrender foods” purportedly designed to convince invading Chinese soldiers to lay down their weapons.
The packages contain instant noodles, chocolate, candy, biscuits, egg rolls and bottled mineral water.
Officers from the Psychological Warfare Operations Group on Sunday presented the package along with videos and posters at a news conference at the ministry’s headquarters in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
“We designed the packaging to emphasize the cherished values of freedom and democracy, which can neutralize China’s military threats and their propaganda campaign against Taiwan,” Colonel Wang Yi-hung (王宜弘) said.
The sentences “Lay down your weapons,” “Put your hands up,” “Surrender to the Republic of China Army,” and “We can guarantee your safety” are printed on the packages in simplified Chinese characters.
The sentences “You can enjoy this snack. Safety and freedom is right in front of you,” is printed on the packaging of a chocolate bar.
“We can use these surrender foods, together with multimedia tools, such as video, posters and booklets, to influence the hearts and minds of the enemy and achieve the successful goals of psychological warfare,” Wang said.
However, pundits and Internet users ridiculed the packages, with many joking about them on public discussion forums, while others said it is a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“These items are quite cute, even I want to buy them to give away as gifts. I think tourists will love these products. They should be mass-produced, because these will sell very well,” social commentator Lucifer Chu (朱學恒) wrote yesterday.
Users of the Professional Technology Temple criticized the ministry for wasting taxpayers’ money.
“This psychological warfare unit should be disbanded immediately,” one said.
“It’s an April fool’s joke, right?” a user asked, while another said: “This shows that our military budget is being used for frivolous things.”
However, some Internet users supported the effort.
“In wartime, maybe these are effective, you never know,” one wrote, while another said: “This will work when we get the PLA [Chinese People’s Liberation Army] troops holed up in a siege and they get hungry.”
The packages were also criticized in China.
“How can they believe PLA soldiers will surrender when they see these food items? They have no idea of the quality of our military food provisions,” a Chinese Internet user wrote.
“This might work, because PLA soldiers might die from laughing too hard,” another added.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the