Beijing’s campaign against Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) exploited Taiwan’s democratic openness, a national security report said on Sunday.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) and Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao have in the past few days criticized Shen and his father, Shen Tu-cheng (沈土城), head of Sicuens International Co (兆億).
Ta Kung Pao on Tuesday last week published a story online condemning Puma Shen and his father for allegedly profiteering from China-made merchandise, with the daily’s print edition on the same day dedicating an entire section to the matter, calling Puma Shen “anti-intellectual” and accusing his father of infidelity.
Photo: Reuters
The TAO on Thursday announced it would “sanction” Sicuens, while certain Taiwanese news outlets concurrently attacked the Shen family for “making red money,” the national security report said.
Beijing’s attacks aimed to discredit Puma Shen, a major advocate for countering China’s disinformation operations and cognitive warfare tactics against Taiwan, it said.
Puma Shen is also the cofounder of the Kuma Academy, a nonprofit civil defense organization dedicated to educating and training volunteers.
Such attacks aim to create a chilling effect to deter researchers and journalists who focus on “sensitive issues” such as Chinese disinformation, the report said.
The most insidious aspect of the campaign against Puma Shen lies in its exploitation of Taiwan’s democratic society, compelling the legislator and his supporters to waste time and resources defending themselves, while distracting from China’s disinformation efforts, it said.
The smear campaign also provided Puma Shen’s political enemies with material to attack the lawmaker, the report said.
“Taiwan’s democracy and political party dynamics were weaponized to attack itself,” it said.
The attack on Puma Shen progressed through the three stages of cognitive manipulation, it said.
Pro-Beijing news outlets based in Hong Kong paved the way for a broader attack in the first stage, supplying material to certain Taiwanese media, which was “laundered” in the second stage, blending the reports with remarks from opposition politicians and political commentators, masking the cognitive warfare effort as ordinary party politics debate, it added.
The third stage of the campaign was led by the TAO’s announcement of sanctions, which spread narratives using phrases such as “Taiwanese independence diehards,” “anti-China vanguard” and “making red money” — rhetoric often used by the Chinese government, the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao, and some Taiwanese news outlets, the report said.
The attack was not an isolated incident, but part of Beijing’s broader political warfare strategy that integrates “united front” efforts with public opinion manipulation, as well as psychological and legal warfare, it added.
To counter such tactics, the report suggested building the public’s “immunity” by increasing the transparency of news media and strengthening society-wide resilience.
It also urged the government to swiftly identify those disseminating disinformation and to clearly explain to the public the typical patterns of cognitive warfare.
The government should implement stricter media ownership regulations, requiring news organizations to disclose funding from foreign governments and their affiliates, while news organizations with known links to foreign governments should be required to disclose this information on their platforms, it said.
The report recommended formalizing cooperation among intelligence agencies, academic researchers, fact-checking organizations and media platforms to strengthen whole-of-society defense.
It also called for increased funding for media literacy education to raise public awareness of cross-platform influence operations
A national security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that instances of Taiwanese media assisting external forces in cognitive warfare have become increasingly common in the past few years.
However, the attack on Puma Shen stands out, as it was the first case of “cross-strait collusion” targeting a Taiwanese lawmaker that directly challenged Taiwan’s democratic boundaries, they said.
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