On Sept. 14, Su Chii-cherng (蘇啟誠), director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office’s (TECO) Osaka branch office, took his own life in his office. Apparently the last straw that pushed this diplomat over the edge was the heavy criticism that his office came under from political parties and media in Taiwan, who accused it of being ineffective in evacuating Taiwanese travelers when Typhoon Jebi battered Japan’s Kansai region.
The most regrettable is the inflammatory allegation that the Chinese embassy sent buses to transfer Chinese, including Taiwanese, from Kansai International Airport, while the TECO did not. The story has since been proven to be fake news that was originally published by Chinese online media.
There might be more than one reason for this sad incident, but we need to single out this point and face up to it, because it poses a big challenge to Taiwan.
Taiwan needs to establish a consensus and find ways to respond to misinformation, or it might hurt its young and tender democracy, and even threaten national security.
Since the 2016 US presidential election, it sometimes seems that there is more than one truth. New words such as “post-truth,” “post-truth politics” and “alternative facts” are being used to describe this phenomenon, which is a distinct feature of this age of new media. Taiwan lags far behind in its experience and understanding of such issues. Without a clear enough grasp of the whole situation, it will not be able to respond effectively.
The 2016 US presidential election process was marred by other countries’ attempts to influence the results by manipulating online opinion. As an advanced democracy, the US is determined not to take such interference lying down.
On Wednesday last week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing sanctions against any foreign force that interferes in US elections. If anyone hacks into the voting system or uses media to spread disinformation, the government has the power to take action against them.
US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats identified outsiders who have attempted such interference as including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. This shows that the US faces the challenge of fighting on many fronts, so it must take decisive action.
The US might be targeted because of its great size and power. The same cannot be said of Taiwan, but it does have a mortal foe — a dictatorial regime that is determined to crush it, no matter whether it calls itself “Taiwan” or the “Republic of China.” This is completely different from anything that Russia might want to do to the US.
However, at this stage, Taiwan’s national security agencies are still trying to fully understand the workings of contentious information in the new media age, so as to prevent China or other hostile foreign forces from meddling in national affairs. The measures they have taken so far are nowhere near strong enough, but even those limited moves have come in for heavy criticism.
Unlike in the past, intelligence gathering in Taiwan is now separate from party politics and the National Security Bureau (NSB) is no longer the “big boss” that it used to be. Furthermore, it does not have judicial or police status, so all it can do is monitor the situation.
Unlike US prosecutors, it cannot take the initiative to arrest people or directly investigate and deal with meddlers in their nests. Besides, the NSB’s so-called “big data and opinion team” is not new: It was established long ago under then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is not doing the public any favors when it criticizes the government for doing what it deemed to be right when it was in power.
Why do these critics not apply the same standards to China’s mass surveillance system, which collects big data, conducts facial recognition and gathers genetic information through systems such as China’s Skynet Project, and finally combines them into its social credit system, under which it gives people ratings and doles out rewards or penalties accordingly.
China has not even spared one of its closest allies — Cambodia, where months before a general election, China hacked into the computers of the Cambodian National Election Committee, media and opposition parties.
When China treats its friends like that, how can Taiwan not be on its guard?
Having control of the legislature as well as the executive, the Democratic Progressive Party government must show its courage and determination by explaining the true situation and proposing countermeasures. If it does so, the public will surely follow.
Tzou Jiing-wen is editor-in-chief of the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
Translated by Julian Clegg
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