The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) is tracking the movement of money from foreign sources to prevent Chinese funds from being used to interfere in the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 13, sources said yesterday.
The bureau’s Anti-Money Laundering Division is monitoring channels through which foreign money flows into Taiwan, such as underground remittance services, sources familiar with the matter said.
The effort is targeting offshore funding used to increase the click-through rate of online influencers, and support specific candidates and temple charity events, the sources said.
Photo: Reuters
Some online opinion leaders who have gained notoriety by commenting on political issues publish content that attacks Taiwan, or is pro-Beijing, unverified or controversial to gain assistance and donations from Chinese supporters, they said, adding that the actions support China’s “cognitive warfare” tactics.
The bureau is closely monitoring controversial online personalities or the marketing companies behind them to determine if they receive money from suspicious sources, they said.
When suspicious funding is detected, the agencies trace the money and provide cash transaction reports and suspicious transaction reports to help prosecutors investigate such cases, they said.
Chinese election-interference strategies also include buying advertisements through third parties in Taiwan, such as supporters’ associations and foundations, or using temple charity events as a pretense for vote-buying, they said.
Funding for such efforts might be transferred through underground remittance or money laundering schemes using cryptocurrencies, the sources said.
The bureau is working with local prosecutors to share information regarding such cases, they said.
Lo Cheng-chung (羅承宗), a professor and director of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology’s Institute of Financial and Economic Law, yesterday said that authorities should target “upstream” funding sources to prevent foreign actors from spreading disinformation through online influencers.
Regulations that have been put in place to prevent foreign actors from interfering in the nation’s radio, television and publishing industries cannot effectively regulate behavior on social media, Lo said.
A large amount of false information is spread online, preventing the public from receiving accurate and complete information, which poses a serious threat to democracy, he said.
France has passed legislation to fight online misinformation, while Germany has passed the Network Enforcement Act to combat false news online and the EU passed the Digital Services Act to protect the rights of digital users, which demonstrates the necessity for legislation to prevent disinformation, he said.
The Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Act (證券投資信託及顧問法) has been amended to regulate online influencers creating content related to investments and holding online platforms accountable for fraud that harms investors, Lo said.
To combat disinformation, Taiwan should follow the example of the EU to require platform operators to be transparent and disclose where their funding comes from, which would reveal which influencers are “paid to talk,” he said.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS