China would try to manipulate Taiwan’s presidential election in January in its favor by creating divisions within Taiwanese society, former CIA station chief in Asia David Sauer said.
Sauer analyzed the tensions across the Taiwan Strait and Beijing’s possible influences in Taiwan’s January elections at the monthly forum of the Washington-based Washington Times Foundation on Tuesday.
China has made the strategic decision to “go all in on” Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections through “a combination of information warfare, military intimidation, political and economic manipulation to try to create divisions within Taiwan society,” he said.
Photo: CNA
“I really do believe they’ll try to manipulate it quite carefully, but effectively,” he said.
The aim of intervening in the election is to get the candidates that China wants elected, possibly by funneling money into their campaigns, as these candidates could help it advance its agenda of trying to coerce Taiwan into unification, he said.
China would use information warfare to question the credibility of the US and Taiwan’s incumbent government, which has a close relationship with Washington, as well as continue to squeeze Taiwan’s diplomatic space, he added.
Beijing would frame the election as a choice between peace and war — as former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) described it in January — and might step up military intimidation against Taiwan to get the message across, he said.
China has increased its capability “at a breathtaking pace,” including missile, army, navy and nuclear forces, allowing it to conduct massive espionage campaigns directed at Western technologies, especially the US, he said.
The US National Counterintelligence and Security Center estimated that China steals between US$300 billion and US$600 billion of US research and development and intellectual property a year, which have helped fuel the Chinese economy and defense modernization, he said.
China has used economic manipulation as a tool to reward or punish certain areas of Taiwan depending on their political leanings, such as halting the importation of pineapples from regions that support the Democratic Progressive Party, he said.
Without pointing out which of the three presidential candidates Beijing supports, Sauer said that New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) nominee, “is considered to be very moderate on the cross-strait issue.”
“The results of the election really will frame how China decides to move forward with its Taiwan policy,” he said.
Beijing has long been attempting to intervene in Taiwan’s election, he added, citing its military aggression in 1996 to intimidate Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who supported a Taiwanese identity, when he ran in the nation’s first direct presidential election.
Although Sauer thinks war in the Taiwan Strait is neither imminent nor inevitable, he said that the Taiwanese and US militaries are not ready for a conflict with China.
Taiwan’s limited soldiers and weapons systems might not last very long until the US can “meaningfully engage with the Chinese to be able to make a material difference on the battlefield,” he said.
He added that Taiwan has not addressed the issue of China recruiting retired Taiwanese military officers to engage in espionage activities.
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