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.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS