Cognitive warfare directed at Taiwan at this moment is election interference

 Jan. 8, 2024

Taipei, Taiwan

What exactly do we mean by saying election interference by China against Taiwan? I suppose we can start by saying that Taiwan has a robust democratic system, but it is a young democracy, with a legacy of being a government of China in exile, so there are elements in what we are talking about of what you might call traditional cross-Strait relationships, of, for instance, diaspora and nostalgia.  Chinese influence on politics is also a societal and demographic problem. Examples of this would include the many cases being investigated and prosecuted right now of local politicians taking paid propaganda trips to China, where they are told how to act or vote. This is a certain extreme of this social phenomenon of diaspora and nostalgia. 

However, the Chinese influence operations don’t stop there, and here is where we can stop blaming Taiwanese for the influence problem. The central problem to be understood here is that China is using just about everything short of war to coerce Taiwan into eventually accepting reunification, and, as a democratic country facing an authoritarian country, Taiwan is open to influence on its political system in ways that China is not. So China tends to launch operations to influence Taiwan during elections that Taiwan can’t respond to in the same manner. 

So that’s a bit of a dilemma for Taiwan. China’s current strategy is to combine domains of military, diplomatic, economic, and cyber to try to influence Taiwanese attitudes. For example, airplanes will fly over the median line of the Air Defense Identification Zone, while China is considering reneging on tariff exemptions, and Chinese cyber actors also launch cyber attacks and spread disinformation.

All of these actions tend to happen more or less concurrently, and are often launched in retaliation for certain things Taiwan does, like hosting foreign dignitaries, and especially when there are free elections.  In short, there is a rather intense bombardment across several conflict domains whenever Taiwan makes political decisions to engage with the democratic world, almost as if China is trying to be a domestic player in Taiwan’s politics.  This is, as clearly as I can right now state, what I mean by Chinese election interference.  It happens often, and it is not limited to expressions of force, but rather is an attempt to influence what used to be called hearts and minds, or the psychology of the opponent, or the will to fight. What we’re talking about now is the attempt to paralyze the decision-making capacity of the opponent, and this is also called cognitive warfare.

The Chinese have made cognitive warfare one of their main military domains of conflict, because their goal is to unify areas where they have disputed sovereignty into their version of a modern Chinese imperial dynasty. As Xi Jinping continues to consolidate strongman power in China, the tendency of the underlings at his command to exaggerate the goal of retaking disputed territory increases, taking on a more and more unhinged character.  This is the nature of the threat that Taiwan faces daily, which tends to build, even as Taiwan’s civil society grows stronger and more sophisticated.

Taiwan’s economic, technological, and social strength continues to increase in the face of these cognitive warfare threats. To grasp an example of why this might be, I remember talking to a veteran of the Standing Rock protests, who said that in the most tense days of the standoff, with private mercenaries surrounding them with guns and the latest police technology, those were the nights when he had never slept better in his life. I do believe Taiwan thrives in the same way.