Taiwanese Election Interference and its Lessons for the United States

Taiwanese researcher Wen-Ping Liu presented the prevalence of cognitive warfare in the PRC’s misinformation strategy.

A group of government officials and NGO officers from Taiwan traveled to Washington, DC on April 8, 2024 to share how the United States can defend itself against election interference from China in its November elections. The visit reignited debates about the methods of China’s involvement in the 2024 Taiwanese election. 

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Taiwanese election saw the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate William Lai elected on January 13, 2024. He won over the conservative party, Kuomintang (KMT), candidate Hou Yu-ih by 6.6 percent, with the candidates receiving 40.1 and 33.5 percent of the vote respectively, writes Al-Jazeera. 

BBC reports that Lai follows in his predecessor's footsteps in carefully asserting his opinion on Taiwanese independence, continuously stating that there is “no need to declare independence because Taiwan is already an independent sovereign state.” According to an article from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the “​​United States will likely have an active partner in Lai on many fronts.” On the opposite side, Hou asserted that continuing dialogues with Beijing is “a crucial way to defuse crises and ensure peace and stability,” according to Foreign Affairs. According to the Global Taiwan Institute, this follows the historical trend in which DDP candidates support Taiwanese independence while KMT candidates advocate for a continuing relationship, even reunification, with China. 

Because of strong election outcome preferences in China, researchers have studied attempts by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to influence the Taiwanese election. Dr. Kristen Looney, an associate professor of Asian Studies and Government at Georgetown University, emphasizes that “PRC's election interference goals with respect to Taiwan are clearer: drum up support for the KMT or pan-blue candidates and curb support for the DPP and pan-green candidates.” Researchers have found that, despite the outcome in Lai’s favor, Chinese interference in the election was prevalent, according to the Washington Times.

With these events in mind, a group of Taiwanese government and NGO officials traveled to Washington, DC on April 8 to present their research into PRC interference. During an event held by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), the Taiwanese group demonstrated the PRC’s attempt to raise fear among the populace to grow existing political divides. This revolved around anti-United States dialogue, promoting skepticism through false information on United States activity, in areas including weapons development, extensive election interference, and trade relationships. Influence also aimed to reinforce the concept of “One China” and glorify the power of the PRC in Taiwan. 

In the same TECRO event, Chihhao Yu, Co-Director of the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG), explained that China’s main strategies for asserting this information were “adopting and distorting domestic voices, cultivating unofficial brands or personalities, hiring social media account clusters, commissioning fake polls, coordinating mass media, and infiltrating closed chat groups”. Wen-Ping Liu, Member of the Research Committee of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB), described the actions of the Chinese as “cognitive warfare”, which uses social networks, both online and in-person, to influence large groups of people. 

TikTok is an ideal platform for the PRC’s influence: it bears many similarities to the Chinese equivalent, Douyin, allowing for the creation of one type of misinformation to be used on both platforms. Additionally, Yu highlighted that TikTok’s lack of personal data security and addictiveness spreads misinformation effectively. Through proxy accounts, misinformation regarding the election, the United States, and the current state of political affairs in Taiwan was spread to specific demographics identified to be susceptible to these campaigns. Eve Chiu, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Taiwan FactCheck Center, stated that AI played a large role in determining who this content should spread to in order to maximize political impact. The content itself is delivered by influencers, both real and fake. Liu elaborated that the spread of this online message was continued in person by local collaborators. The panelists were able to spot commonalities in misinformation publications, including the format influencers were using in their videos, the focus of their content, and the timing of their postings. 

What does this mean for the United States? Billion Lee, Co-founder of Cofacts, stated that the United States must promote a pro-democratic sentiment and increase transparency within its own policies. As China focuses on an anti-United States narrative in its propaganda, the United States needs to counter this narrative. In looking at the United State’s upcoming election in November, Chiu highlighted that Chinese interference will likely come in the form of exacerbating existing political divides on social media through misinformation campaigns.