Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday called on like-minded partners to unite against cognitive warfare used by authoritarian regimes, adding that the government is striving to combat disinformation leading up to the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 13.
Wu made the remarks at a policy forum held by Taipei-based think tank Doublethink Lab and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China to explore how policymakers can respond to mounting concerns over China’s activities and influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Taiwan has always been a target of China’s intimidation and political coercion, as well as “a testing ground for China’s cognitive warfare,” which aims to manipulate the outcome of Taiwan’s elections, Wu said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Utilizing military threats, economic coercion, disinformation campaigns and illegal financial flows, Beijing is attempting to create social division and mistrust to undermine the nation’s democratic system, he said.
“We should not let authoritarian China get its way and get away with it,” he said, calling on international partners to “unite and develop a strong response.”
There is a need to raise awareness about the nature and extent of China’s malign influence on Taiwan and the rest of the democratic world, he said.
To counter China’s interference, the government has established a cross-agency mechanism for reporting, verifying and rapidly clarifying disinformation, he said.
It has also bolstered policy communication among sectors of society and is working to enhance public media literacy, he said.
The public and private sectors are working together to counter cognitive warfare initiated by authoritarian regimes, he said, adding that non-governmental organizations can provide great insight and effective solutions to the issue.
Shiori Kanno, a former member of the Japanese House of Representatives, said that in Japan, there is a heightened awareness that “a crisis in Taiwan is a crisis in Japan.”
Japan has been boosting cooperation with other countries to safeguard a free and open Indo-Pacific region and to ensure that the “status quo” is not changed by force, Kanno said.
The Taiwan issue is frequently mentioned in speeches by Japanese legislators, she said, adding that public concern over national security issues contributed to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s decision to increase Japan’s defense-related spending to 2 percent of GDP.
Explaining how a potential cross-strait conflict would affect the economy might be the most effective way to raise public awareness, she said.
If Japan’s trade with Taiwan were cut off by a cross-strait crisis, Japanese GDP would fall 1.4 percent and might worsen, she said, citing data from a Japanese think tank.
Philippine Representative Adrian Amatong said that “as much as we’d like to strongly express our support for Taiwan,” it would mean nothing to China, as the Philippines is a relatively small country.
It is therefore crucial for international partners to unite and develop solutions to avoid an escalation in the region, Amatong said.
People in South Korea feel the Chinese threat “quite concretely” and are generally opposed to the prospect of war across the Taiwan Strait, South Korean National Assembly member Ji Seong-ho said.
In related news, the Central Election Commission yesterday announced that a review of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates from the Democratic Progressive Party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party showed that all six met the qualifications stipulated in the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法).
No candidates hold nationalities of foreign countries, have restored citizenship or acquired citizenship by naturalization, which would disqualify them from registering as candidates, the commission said.
Additional reporting by Li Wen-hsin
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS