Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) on Tuesday called on democracies to cooperate on countering China’s cognitive warfare efforts.
Speaking at a policy forum held by Taipei-based think tank Doublethink Lab and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, Wu said that China was “attempting to create social division and mistrust to undermine [Taiwan’s] democratic system.”
Shiori Kanno, a former parliamentary member of the Japanese Diet, also spoke at the event, saying that the issue of Taiwan’s security had been receiving greater attention in Japan and argued that a conflict in the Taiwan Strait would impact Japan’s economy.
Philippine Representative Adrian Amatong also expressed concern, saying it was “crucial for international partners to unite and develop solutions to avoid an escalation in the region.”
This follows similar comments Wu made during a meeting with University of Tokyo professor Yasuhiro Matsuda on Sept. 11, when Matsuda led a delegation of researchers to Taipei. Wu told Matsuda that Taiwan was committed to cooperating with Japan and other like-minded countries to address Chinese aggression in the region. Cognitive warfare was one of the items discussed in the meeting.
“The Chinese government and military writings say cognitive operations aim to ‘capture the mind’ of one’s foes, shaping an adversary’s thoughts and perceptions and consequently their decisions and actions,” US political scientist Peter Singer wrote in an article published on Oct. 17 by Defense One.
“Unlike US defense documents and strategic thinkers, the People’s Liberation Army puts cognitive warfare on par with the other domains of warfare like air, sea and space, and believes it key to victory — particularly victory without war,” he wrote.
China actively uses this cognitive warfare to influence the outcome of elections in the US and Taiwan, and to manipulate public opinion on key social issues with the aim of sowing public discontent in democracies including Taiwan, the US and Japan.
This was seen most recently following a news report about government plans to introduce migrant workers from India to help ease Taiwan’s labor woes. China allegedly used thousands of fake social media accounts to spam posts about the news with racist comments, the Central News Agency reported, adding that fake Chinese accounts also spammed Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor’s Facebook page, demanding information about the plans.
China is believed to be using fake news to stoke fear among Taiwanese voters about possible war if the Democratic Progressive Party is re-elected in next month’s general election, a narrative that some opposition candidates have aped.
However, Taiwan’s elections are not the only target on China’s radar. Reuters reported on Sept. 7 that China is targeting US voters with AI.
“Microsoft researchers said... they found what they believe is a network of fake, Chinese-controlled social media accounts seeking to influence US voters by using artificial intelligence” such as by mimicing US voters, it said.
China has also allegedly interfered in Canada’s federal elections in 2019 and 2021, and a researcher with alleged links to senior UK Conservative Party politicians was arrested in September on suspicion of spying for China. There are likely countless other examples of Chinese interference in Western democracies.
Wu described Taiwan as “a testing ground for China’s cognitive warfare,” and for this reason, Taiwan would ideally serve as a base of operations for joint efforts to counter Chinese interference and aggression.
The government should hold talks with senior representatives of other democracies on the possibility of an alliance to combat Chinese cognitive warfare and espionage. Democracies would be stronger together.
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
Recent media reports have again warned that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies are disappearing and might vanish altogether within the next 15 years. Yet viewed through the broader lens of social and economic change, the rise and fall — or transformation — of industries is rarely the result of a single factor, nor is it inherently negative. Taiwan itself offers a clear parallel. Once renowned globally for manufacturing, it is now best known for its high-tech industries. Along the way, some businesses successfully transformed, while others disappeared. These shifts, painful as they might be for those directly affected, have not necessarily harmed society
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) on Monday rebuked seven Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers for stalling a special defense budget and visiting China. The legislators — including Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲), Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之) and Lin Szu-ming (林思銘) — attended an event in Xiamen, China, over the weekend hosted by the Xiamen Taiwan Businessmen Association, where they met officials from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). “Weng’s decision to stall the special defense budget defies majority public opinion,” Wu said, accusing KMT legislators of acting as proxies for Beijing. KMT Legislator Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲), acting head of the party’s Culture and Communications
Legislators of the opposition parties, consisting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Friday moved to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德). They accused Lai of undermining the nation’s constitutional order and democracy. For anyone who has been paying attention to the actions of the KMT and the TPP in the legislature since they gained a combined majority in February last year, pushing through constitutionally dubious legislation, defunding the Control Yuan and ensuring that the Constitutional Court is unable to operate properly, such an accusation borders the absurd. That they are basing this
RSS