cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50629515

• Chinese state media amplify Taiwan opposition voices to undermine DPP government, IORG data show
• Campaign aims in part to undercut Taiwan’s push to lift defense spending, Taiwan officials say
• Taiwan counters with media-literacy efforts, DPP stresses strength over concessions to China
• China’s Taiwan Affairs Office didn’t respond to questions about information warfare

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As Chinese warships and fighter jets staged massive drills around Taiwan in December, a parallel action was unfolding on smartphone screens.

On Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, a news outlet run by the Chinese Communist Party posted a 51-second video of Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun accusing President Lai Ching-te of inviting Chinese aggression. Lai, Cheng said, was “dragging all 23 million of us” in Taiwan into a “dead end, a ​road to death” by pursuing independence. The clip quickly surfaced on Facebook, YouTube and other platforms popular in Taiwan.

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Chinese state media outlets are increasingly amplifying Taiwanese critics of the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), including influencers and politicians linked to the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), according to five Taiwanese security officials and data from ‌Taipei-based research group IORG.

China imports the public statements of leading KMT and other opposition figures that are critical of the Taiwan government and pumps them out in a torrent of anti-DPP messaging in Chinese state media and on social media platforms in China, according to the data and sources. Those clips are then reshared and often repackaged for consumption on platforms popular in Taiwan, including Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, as well as on Douyin, sometimes embellished or presented in ways that obscure China’s hand.

While China has in the past employed Taiwanese figures in its propaganda, it has turbocharged this information-warfare tactic, the Taiwan security officials said: Familiar voices and accents can sound more credible.

The goal is to discredit a government Beijing accuses of seeking independence, the officials said. And, with the DPP seeking $40 billion in extra defense outlays, the campaign also appears aimed at convincing Taiwanese that China’s ​military power is so overwhelming that it is futile for Taiwan to spend heavily on more American weapons, according to IORG and three of the security officials.

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While Chinese preparations for military action against Taiwan continue, the information warfare ​is part of Beijing’s strategy of wearing down Taiwan without resorting to force. In this regard, Taiwan’s opposition KMT provides a valuable opening for China: The party has moved to seek closer ties with Beijing in a bid to head off what it says is a crisis made worse by the DPP government’s provocation of China.

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Cheng, the KMT leader, was the top-ranked Taiwanese figure in the Chinese clips, featuring in 460 videos across 68 Douyin accounts and generating more than five million interactions, including likes, comments and shares. ‌The videos amplified her calls ⁠for “peace” with China, her criticism of President Lai as a “pawn” of external forces, and her characterization of the DPP’s stance on Taiwan independence as destructive. Once aired on Chinese state media and social media platforms, some of the clips were repackaged and posted on platforms popular in Taiwan.

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Various influencers were also heavily cited by the Chinese outlets. Among them were Holger Chen Chih-han, a bodybuilder popular with younger audiences, and five retired senior military officials known for criticizing the DPP and Taiwan’s defenses.

“Happy birthday, motherland,” Chen said on a YouTube livestream in late September, ahead of China’s National Day. Short clips of the broadcast, in which he also said the people of Taiwan and China were “one family,” were later shared by Chinese state media outlets, including China News Service. Chen didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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Taiwan’s intelligence officials recorded over 45,000 sets of inauthentic ​social-media accounts and 2.3 million pieces of disinformation on China-Taiwan issues last year, a January report by Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said. It described the goals of Beijing’s information warfare: to exacerbate divisions within Taiwan; weaken Taiwanese people’s will to resist; and win support for China’s stance.

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