Early this month, Kuma Academy, a Taiwanese civil defense organization, released a disaster supply kit priced at NT$1,380. The kit includes practical survival items, such as a water-powered flashlight and a lightweight water filter. What began as a civic initiative quickly escalated into a political flash point.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was quick to denounce the kit as overpriced, accusing Kuma Academy of “disaster profiteering.” The Hualien County Government further intensified the controversy by distributing similar kits for free — a move seen as a pointed challenge. However, the government-issued kits themselves raised questions after it was revealed that they contain simplified Chinese characters, suggesting ties to products sourced from China.
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) defended Kuma Academy, clarifying that its kits were assembled using components imported from the US and Japan, not from China. However, the damage was already done: A discussion about disaster readiness devolved into a media circus filled with accusations, nationalism and political posturing.
What unfolded over the following days was far more calculated. The Facebook page Politics by Volume (聲量看政治) analyzed more than 70 news headlines over 10 days, uncovering a coordinated three-phase attack.
From June 10 to June 14, media coverage focused on the kit’s price, with headlines comparing it with cheaper alternatives on Amazon and deriding it as the “Hermes of survival kits.”
From June 15 to Tuesday last week, the narrative shifted to insinuations of ulterior motives, including unfounded allegations about the organization’s founder, DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋), and alleged ties to China.
On Wednesday and Thursday last week, the campaign peaked with comparisons to Hualien’s free kits. Headlines featured divisive slogans such as “Hualien gives for free, Kuma sells for NT$1,380,” framing the purchase as a political litmus test.
This is not genuine public discourse. It is nothing but orchestrated cognitive warfare.
Instead of a sincere debate about the value or utility of a disaster supply kit, the narrative was hijacked by a barrage of coordinated content across platforms, including doxxing, viral videos and widespread reposts. Local governments even joined the fray with sarcastic price comparisons, creating what analysts call a “volume kill zone,” a deliberate tactic to drown out reasoned voices with overwhelming noise.
More troubling than the tactics is the deliberate shift in messaging. What began as a pricing question quickly mutated into a character attack, suggesting Kuma Academy was a scam, or worse, a covert player in China’s influence operations. Meanwhile, the actual merit of the disaster supply kit — its functionality, accessibility or role in preparedness — was barely discussed.
This campaign fits the textbook definition of gray zone warfare; a strategy that avoids direct conflict, but seeks to erode societal cohesion through manipulation of public sentiment, ambiguity and distortion. This is warfare without bombs or soldiers, only algorithms, outrage and misinformation. The goal is to discredit and dismantle from within, until the target collapses.
In this case, the target is not just Kuma Academy. It is Taiwan’s broader civil preparedness movement.
Why would a civil defense group attract such attacks? Because efforts to prepare for conflict threaten those who profit from complacency. It undermines the comforting illusion that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family,” a convenient fiction promoted by certain political factions. When citizens take self-defense seriously, it shrinks the space for denial, disinformation and false promises of peace through submission.
This is more than a smear campaign. It is a litmus test for Taiwan’s democratic maturity. Can society still distinguish good-faith public initiatives from politically engineered outrage? Can it preserve room for rational policy debate in an information environment dominated by viral clips and clickbait headlines?
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