Chinese posing as Taiwanese have issued online apologies to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for “personal attacks” and “racist abuse,” Taiwanese authorities said yesterday.
Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau officials presented the findings at a media briefing to rebut accusations by Tedros, who on Wednesday accused Taiwan of engaging in personal attacks against him.
Tedros said that he over the past three months received death threats and racist abuse, and claimed that it originated from Taiwan.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau
Within hours of Tedros’ remarks, Twitter accounts traced to China began posting apologies to the WHO head on behalf of the Taiwanese public, which were then circulated on Chinese social media, amplifying their reach, Cyber Security Office head Chang Yu-jen (張尤仁) said.
The first such messages found by the bureau originated from the Twitter accounts @TMGNews_CN and @RFXZ_China, whose Chinese-language descriptions respectively purport them to be a news outlet and a radio station in Xuzhou, China, Chang said.
Chang said both posted apologies in Chinese, while one was accompanied with an English-language translation that read: “Be [sic] a Taiwanese, I feel extremely ashamed that we attacked Tandse [sic] in such a malicious way. I apologize to Tedros on behalf of Taiwanese and beg for his forgiveness.”
Comments on the messages called for other Chinese social media users to “use the statement as a template to copy and pass off as Taiwanese issuing an apology,” with some even copying online pictures of a Taiwanese national identification card to accompany social media posts, Chang said.
Chinese social media users then issued rallying calls with comments including: “Remember to use the format,” “Please disguise yourself more realistically” and “It is fun to play this game” to encourage others to impersonate Taiwanese as part of an online “fake apology” campaign to “admit” perpetrating the alleged attacks against Tedros, Chang said.
In addition to the messages, other evidence pointing to Chinese social media users include Internet protocol addresses traced to China, the use of simplified Chinese characters and phrasing that is different from that commonly used by Taiwanese, Chang said.
The bureau combed through three months of posts on Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media platforms, but did not find any personal or racist attacks against Tedros originating from accounts of Taiwanese, Chang said.
While the investigation is still ongoing, all indications are that the attacks most likely came from China or other countries, Chang said, citing bureau statistics from earlier this week showing that since the COVID-19 outbreak began, a misinformation campaign against Taiwan has been relentless, with more than 70 percent of misinformation about the disease originating in China.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS