Beijing is conducting a sophisticated campaign to demoralize Taiwanese by exploiting their economic anxieties and fear of war, a report released yesterday by a civil research organization showed.
China has been engaged in a systematic campaign to construct a narrative of “Taiwan defeatism” to encourage Taiwanese acquiescence, Information Operations Research Group codirector Yu Chih-hao (游知澔) told a news conference in Taipei.
The defeatist narrative is formed by framing news about Taiwan’s foreign affairs, national defense, economic issues and democracy with messaging that depicts the nation as weak and dependent on foreign powers, Yu said.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
People who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese have positive views of China’s economy and negative views of the Democratic Progressive Party government, and are more likely to accept defeatism, he said.
The types of issues Beijing seeks to leverage to spread defeatism reflect Taiwanese fears of being abandoned by allies, conflicted national identity and lack of education in national security matters, he said.
The defeatist worldview, built to dovetail with other Chinese information campaigns, creates a sense of crisis and then presents acquiescence to China as its solution, he said.
The promotion of defeatist messages is being timed to put a negative spin on specific events as they happen in real time, such as Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military exercises, he said.
The vectors for Chinese propaganda include Taiwanese politicians and political pundits, social media accounts under the management of unknown organizations or individuals, Beijing’s leadership and state-run media, he said.
Chinese propaganda routinely quotes Taiwanese opposition figures, and makes use of idioms and phrases typically used in China to homogenize Taiwanese culture, language and public discourse, Yu said.
Citing a poll the center conducted last year, Yu said that 46 percent of Taiwanese are pessimistic about the nation’s economy and national security, suggesting a high level of potential susceptibility to Beijing’s propaganda.
TikTok users are more likely to approve of China and express pessimism about the economy, he said.
Chinese propaganda preys on anxiety and a sense of helplessness, especially in disinformation campaigns aimed at sowing division in Taiwan, he said.
The executive branch should enhance information governance, regulate the quality of open source media and emphasize critical reading skills in education, Yu said.
Academics should deepen interdisciplinary study of the information environment in Taiwan and promote public educational efforts, while Taiwanese should be more critical of the information they encounter online and base their discussion about public affairs on verifiable facts, he said.
The Information Operations Research Group seeks to spread public awareness about information manipulation.
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