Safeguarding Taiwan's Democracy from China's Disinformation Deluge

 With Taiwan's presidential election taking place in early January, the island's future relation with the neighboring People's Republic of China (PRC) occupies pole position on the ballot.

The PRC who claim Taiwan as their sovereign territory despite having never occupied or controlled it, have historically launched extensive disinformation campaigns to dissuade voters from supporting the ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

According to a 2022 report by the Digital Society Project, part of the Swedish institute Varieties of Democracy, Taiwan has ranked as the biggest target for foreign disinformation in the world for the last decade. Taiwanese politicians and researchers say the majority of those attacks originate from China.

In recent months, Beijing has been amping up its campaign of intimidation, disinformation and cyber attacks sending ever-increasing numbers of fighter jets into Taiwan's air defense identification zone, as well as exploiting Taiwan's free speech and open internet to manipulate politics and influence public opinion. Among their more popular disinformation tactics are inciting fear of a possible war of invasion and sowing skepticism about the sincerity of the support from Taiwan's allies, most notably the United States.

Disinformation actors also use current international events, such as the ongoing war in Gaza, to remind audiences of the dire consequences of war, sending the message that avoiding war with China is the best option for Taiwan. Beijing aims to convince Taiwanese people that unification is inevitable and irresistible, while balancing its deployment of coercive measures with incentive-driven approaches. 

Thankfully, there are a number of expert organizations in Taiwan that work full-time to investigate and debunk disinformation. One of those is the Taiwan Fact Check Center (@taiwantfc). According to their website, they are a non-profit NGO established by the Association for Quality Journalism and Taiwan Media Watch Foundation. Their mission is to fact-check claims related to public interest issues to promote reliable information, digital literacy, and to make Taiwan a better and stronger democratic society.

We met up recently with their CEO, Eve Chiu (邱家宜) to talk about the organization, examples of their debunking work, China's wumao disinformation army (五毛黨) and much more.


Date of Recording: November 16th, 2023.



Disinformation visualized by a flow of 1's and 0's from a hidden faced character in a hoodie with a CCP government crest in front of his face
Main image courtesy of Pixabay and Taiwan News (see link below)


DIVE DEEPER:

Additional information and references on the topics covered in this episode:

  • Seeing is not believing - deepfakes and cheap fakes spread during the 2024 Taiwan presidential election - Wei-Ping Li, Ph.D., Taiwan Fact Check Center (December 25th, 2023)
  • Additional Fact Check Organizations in Taiwan
  • Shadow Play [pdf download] - Jacinta Keast, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (2023) - see graph below
  • Wumao - 50 Cent Party - wiki

  • Title graphic image courtesy of Pixabay and Taiwan News


Graph of YouTube China propaganda video posting versus China Standard time
From Shadow Play by Jacinta Keast, ASPI, 2023 (see link above)