China is stepping up cognitive warfare against Taiwan, as its United Front Work Department develops a specialized misinformation task force, a national security official said.
China is currently holding the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an annual gathering of the Chinese government known as the “two sessions.”
United Front Work Department head Shi Taifeng (石泰峰) has convened a specialized task force aimed at spreading misinformation about the situation in Ukraine and Taiwan’s semiconductor investments in the US, a national security source said on condition of anonymity.
Photo: Reuters
Spreading this wave of misinformation is a top priority for Beijing, the source cited Shi as saying at the “two sessions.”
As China is highly uncertain of US President Donald Trump’s evolving policies, it must “make Taiwanese people doubt the US and hate Trump, and ensure divisions within Taiwan run long and deep,” he said, according to the source.
The goal of the operation is to “make sure no one in Taiwan trusts the US,” he reportedly said, calling for all government agencies to mobilize and “treat this as a real battle.”
This new wave of cognitive warfare aims to spread narratives that Trump wants to sell out Taiwan, that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co would become American and that Taiwan would ultimately fail against China, the source said.
These narratives are to be spread rapidly by Chinese state media, social media platforms and a network of fake accounts and cooperative media outlets in Taiwan, they said.
National security agencies have already noticed suspicious accounts spreading this misinformation in recent days, the source added.
China’s Ministry of State Security has proposed exploiting divisions over Trump within Taiwan to deepen internal conflict, another national security official said.
It also proposed to spread Taiwanese criticism of Trump and on X and other English-language social media platforms to make Trump think Taiwanese are attacking him, sowing discord in Taiwan-US relations, the official said.
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