Dec. 8, 2023
Taipei, Taiwan
There is a tricky political context enveloping everything going on in Taiwan right now, but I think it reveals something important about the media environment we live in. It involves both domestic and international affairs, alongside technology and cognitive warfare. It may be complex, but it is understandable, and I’ll walk through it with the facts.
First of all, with Taiwan we are talking about a highly open and democratic society. It was not always like that, and its freedoms were hard-won (a story for another day) but the fact remains that Taiwan is remarkably free and open. In fact, a recent report by the Civicus Monitor named Taiwan as Asia-Pacific’s only open society.
Taiwan remains Asia’s only ‘open’ country, report says - Taipei Times
That’s reflected in the American people’s perception of Taiwan, with a recent poll showing lots of popular support for Taiwan, in a variety of areas, from Americans.
Most Americans back recognizing Taiwan, poll shows - Taipei Times
A modicum of economic justice is fast on its way too, as, for example, a 2020 ruling from Taiwan’s Supreme Court has opened the door for Taiwanese courts to deal with labor abuses by Taiwanese transnational corporations.
Holding Taiwan’s transnational corporations to account - Taipei Times
So to begin with, Taiwan is a free and open society comparable to the United States or Europe. The main difference between Taiwan and the US is that Taiwan has a civil law, or inquisitorial, system whereas the US has a common law system. This does make some things very different between the two nations. And the political context of the moment does actually involve this different legal system.
Taiwan is currently governed by the Democratic Progressive Party, which originated as the main opposition during the days of martial law and played a key role in Taiwan’s democratization. But elections are coming up, and there was a recently aborted attempt by two other parties: the KMT, once responsible for martial law, and the TPP, an upstart party led by charismatic amateur politician Ko Wen-je; to form a coalition ticket to oppose the DPP. This alliance fell through in spectacular fashion on live TV, causing quite a stir among some segments of the population. Some might call this a sort of cognitive warfare in and of itself. But the more immediate fact is that it is now an open question whether it all violated Taiwanese election law or not. An inquisitorial probe has been initiated here as to whether the participants in this failed election deal broke the law. Until that probe wraps up, it’s impossible to say, but there is certainly doubt in people’s minds about whether the deal was legal. Aside from the legality of the matter, it can certainly be said that the kerfuffle hid from casual observation the fact that the most China-friendly candidate in the race, Foxconn founder Terry Gou, dropped out of the race in the midst of the wrangling, handing most of his votes to the KMT-aligned parties, as he was being investigated by China for tax and land use issues, and by Taiwan for buying signatures to get his name on the ballot. If there was ever going to be a clear-cut instance of China influencing Taiwan’s elections, that was it, but more people were focused on the “blue-white alliance” of the KMT and the TPP at the time.
KMT-TPP alliance talks under probe - Taipei Times
Now, rather humorously the TPP presidential candidate Ko Wen-je has begun reiterating that he is “deep green at heart,” referring to the DPP’s campaign colors. Perhaps this is to avoid the appearance of impropriety with the probe ongoing into his “blue-white” alliance attempt. But it being too soon to really comment on an ongoing investigation, what can be said is that it has become hard to trust, in this political and media environment.
Ko Wen-je says that he is ‘deep-green at heart’ - Taipei Times
This is because of the overwhelming atmosphere of cognitive warfare. There’s fake news, unsubstantiated rumors and honest-to-god influence operations from China. A summit was recently held by local NGO Doublethink Labs on the topic. The Taiwanese Minister of Foreign Affairs in speaking said that their government has established a cross-agency mechanism to combat disinformation.
Foreign minister seeks unity against authoritarianism - Taipei Times
Of course some disinformation, such as that surrounding the blue-white alliance, is not so easily confronted, but at the very least China’s use of cognitive warfare and influence operations can be combated. One example is an online rumor posted on the platform “Baoliao Commune” (“explosive article commune”) claiming that politicians in Taiwan were using wiretaps to get information on each other and the public. But the article used simplified Chinese characters that are only used in China, the Gregorian calendar, and the titles of persons referenced and the phone numbers cited were fake.
Online wiretapping rumors untrue, prosecutors say - Taipei Times
It is good to see public and private sources using their authority to fact-check disinformation. But not all cognitive warfare, influence operations, or propaganda is so easy to spot or prove false. How should we educate people on how to survive in a new environment where cognitive warfare is the norm?
I don’t have all the answers, but I believe this is a good start. An interview with a RAND Corporation education researcher in an article for the Guardian reprinted yesterday by the Taipei Times brought this point to bear: “a lot of the skills [in spotting cognitive warfare] involve recognizing emotional manipulation, factual absence, and author intent.” With this perhaps we can make a feasible start on media literacy education.
Teaching children how to spot fake news - Taipei Times
Media literacy as an educational subject matter is far from having a settled theory behind it. Most of all, the skills provided by it can be conveyed as a sort of intervening force but people still respond best to media literacy education that speaks to where and how they get their media. And even the simplest navigation of online media requires a dizzying array of skill sets when you break it down into its component parts. The RAND Corporation researcher above did just that in a coauthored paper on the subject, noting that “navigating this environment to complete even simple tasks requires many skills, such as the ability to evaluate sources, synthesize multiple accounts into coherent understanding of an issue, understand the context of communications, and responsibly create and share information.” And that’s only the rationality required. It’s to say nothing of the reasoning necessary to navigate these narratives, and when you throw cognitive warfare into the mix it becomes more complex still. Dealing with this much information is already taxing, but not only that, now there’s disinformation too.
The example above of the online post on Baoliao Commune with fake information in simplified Chinese only in use in Mainland China, is a prime example of cognitive warfare coinciding with disinformation. This is the kind of thing we can expect to see more of, in all languages. Observe how it plays on narratives already present in the decision space. Most politically aware people around the civilized world right now are, not without reason, wary or downright fearful of surveillance. This is because facts have revealed extensive spying operations by the Western nations on other countries and their own citizens. Major non-Western powers are also notorious for surveillance. Every nation does it if they can afford it. Part of the game of geopolitics these days is to do extensive surveillance of your neighbors and peers in the international community. We know this from the Edward Snowden revelations and so forth. Although this particular bit of news was fake, mass surveillance is not, and so there’s a very real fear to play on by creating this disinformation. One cannot blame people from having a justified fear of surveillance by the government, and that’s what makes disinformation about it so troubling and effective. There is a narrative of mass surveillance out there, and it demands our attention, and that’s what allows this disinformation trick to be played on some.
So what should be done about cognitive warfare like this? You may notice that the paradigm of “information paralysis” exists in this space. Cognitive warfare exists militarily to paralyze decision makers before and during conflicts, so this is actually the aim and goal of cognitive warfare: by exploiting narratives, to paralyze the decision making capability of the target. In other words, to control the information that controls the opponent’s decision. “Those that win the fight for information will win it all,” a US general has said.
Cognitive warfare will be deciding factor in battle
What should be done when facing cognitive warfare is to carefully lay out the real facts and set up the narratives involved before firmly dividing what is true from what is false. So, mass surveillance exists, but this wiretap news in particular was false. Doing something like that helps more than getting mad about fake news.
Observation will again show that this fake news about wiretaps triggered all the analytical warning bells outlined by the RAND Corporation researcher quoted in the Guardian. There was emotional manipulation of people’s fear, factual absence regarding the actual reference points of mass surveillance like the US warrantless wiretap program revealed by Snowden, and there was clear author’s intent to cause left-leaning people to fear the party that most represents them. Disinformation is rarely sophisticated and I think this outline of analytical categories to identify it is quite useful. Disinformation will be less of a problem by as much as people understand these categories of analysis.
Although Taiwan’s legal system is very different, they can at least contribute in this way to our understanding of ourselves.
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