Cross-Strait Media War Reveals Taiwan’s Resilience to Chinese Influence

On 12 Novem­ber 2024, Mod­ern Diplo­ma­cy report­ed that despite Chi­na’s exten­sive pro­pa­gan­da efforts and media influ­ence oper­a­tions in Tai­wan, the island democ­ra­cy has shown remark­able resis­tance through a com­bi­na­tion of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, civ­il soci­ety action, and pub­lic aware­ness. The arti­cle begins:

The Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na (PRC) and the Repub­lic of Chi­na (ROC, or Tai­wan) came into exis­tence dur­ing the same time peri­od, and with sim­i­lar con­texts. The island state, hav­ing seen Chi­nese, Japan­ese and Dutch coloni­sa­tion, fell into the con­trol of the Kuom­intang Par­ty (KMT) after their loss to the Mao Zedong-led CCP.

Read more

Key Points:

1. The PRC uses “sharp pow­er” tac­tics like cen­sor­ship and manip­u­la­tion to influ­ence Tai­wanese pol­i­tics and media.
2. Chi­nese pro­pa­gan­da aims to sway Tai­wanese vot­ers towards pro-uni­fi­ca­tion lead­ers and narratives.
3. Tai­wanese resis­tance to Chi­nese influ­ence is attrib­uted to high lit­er­a­cy rates, demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety, and gov­ern­ment initiatives.
4. The pro­pa­gan­da war has glob­al impli­ca­tions, with coun­tries like India learn­ing from Tai­wan’s expe­ri­ence to pro­tect their own demo­c­ra­t­ic institutions.