Taiwan Counters China’s Disinformation Campaign Ahead of Presidential Election

On 16 Decem­ber 2023, CNN report­ed that Tai­wan is step­ping up efforts to com­bat a flood of dis­in­for­ma­tion from Chi­na, espe­cial­ly in the lead-up to its pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Tai­wan, with a pop­u­la­tion of 23.5 mil­lion, is fac­ing inten­si­fied false infor­ma­tion attacks, includ­ing unsci­en­tif­ic Covid-19 treat­ments and polit­i­cal mis­in­for­ma­tion. A key tool in Tai­wan’s defense is Aun­tie Meiyu, a chat­bot inte­grat­ed into Taiwan’s most pop­u­lar mes­sag­ing app, Line, which fact-checks and refutes false claims. The esca­la­tion of dis­in­for­ma­tion from Chi­na, which claims Tai­wan as its ter­ri­to­ry, is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing dur­ing the elec­tion peri­od. Tai­wan’s intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty has warned of Chi­na’s con­cert­ed efforts to influ­ence the upcom­ing elec­tion, favor­ing oppo­si­tion can­di­dates through a mix of dis­in­for­ma­tion, mil­i­tary, and eco­nom­ic tac­tics. These include oper­at­ing fake social media accounts and con­tent farms, as well as fund­ing local news orga­ni­za­tions that sub­tly sup­port Chi­na-friend­ly nar­ra­tives. Tai­wan’s secu­ri­ty offi­cials also raise con­cerns over poten­tial “false flag” oper­a­tions by Chi­na, which could jus­ti­fy mil­i­tary actions against Tai­wan. Amid these chal­lenges, Tai­wanese author­i­ties and news ver­i­fi­ca­tion groups, like the Tai­wan FactCheck Cen­ter, empha­size the impor­tance of news lit­er­a­cy and fact-check­ing mech­a­nisms to uphold the island’s demo­c­ra­t­ic integrity.