Chapter 4 A Case Study of Taiwan
4.4 Analyzing the Effects
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King to immediately delete the video, and stated that the controversy lies with the words
“President” in the video. Potter King refused to delete the video and the contract with the Papitube was terminated. Papitube issued a statement on Weibo saying that it had terminated the contract with Potter King, indicating that the reason was “Potter King’s values and the behaviors he has generated are different from the spirit of integrity and professionalism the company has always promoted”, and expressed “strongly condemned Potter King’s misconduct”. And the last sentence of the statement was “Papitube severely rebukes any words and deeds that harm national honor, adheres to the one China principle, and defends national sovereignty” （石濤，2019）.
From the above discussion, it is obvious that the CCP’s sharp power is through its influence in economic and trade market, the right to work, and even the security of survival, that is, the comprehensive power to publicly or privately influencing specific targets, subjecting the target to self-censorship, to achieve the purpose of controlling and affecting public opinion. This not only affects freedom of speech, but also threatens democracy and national security.
4.4 Analyzing the Effects
“Blue-wave” is the demonstration of China’s sharp power on disinformation; ban business and entertainers is the demonstration of China’s sharp power on agenda setting.
Based on the above discussion, the CCP has used the method of setting up content farms to disseminate fake news and biased news in the most commonly used social media in Taiwan, such as LINE, Facebook, and PTT. At the same time, the CCP has infiltrated local media, such as the media and newspapers of the Want Want Group, transmitting biased
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information to attack the authority of the government and plant contradiction within the society, so as to achieve the effect of attacking the Taiwan government with the mouth of the Taiwan people and support China favored candidate.
However, has the CCP achieved the effect of influencing Taiwan’s election? In the 2018 9-in-1 election, part of the reason for the KMT’s volume was due to the integrating operation of CCP’s disinformation and the pro-China media to attack Tsai administration, thus, I argue that the China does help Han’s high discussing volume during the election, which in part caused the KMT won 15 seats of the 22 counties and cities. The DPP won only 6 seats, especially lost Kaohsiung, a city DPP has been governed for 20 years. Yet, it remains difficult for agencies to confirm that the 2018 9-in-1 election were influenced by China, in other words, it is difficult to prove that the constituents voting behavior was due to the piece of disinformation by China. More solid prove and research is still needed for the argument to be completed.
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Figure 3 Results of 2018 9-in-1 Local Election (2018/11/26)
Source: “九合一選舉結果 6 張圖表快速看懂”, 中央通訊社,2018.
Elected Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, his poll rose from 25.7% to 40.3% within merely four months, and finally won the election with 890,000 votes over 740,000 votes of DPP candidates Chen Chi-mai. In short, the CCP use traditional media and new media to exert sharp power has achieved the effect of influencing domestic public opinion during the 2018 9-in-1 election.
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Figure 4 Poll Data in the Kaohsiung Mayor Election between August and November 2018 (2019/6/26)
Source: Paul Huang, “Chinese Cyber-Operatives Boosted Taiwan’s Insurgent Candidate”, 2018.
Yet, when the discussion of concept of sharp power increased, and the international community and scholars accused the CCP of infiltrating the media of other countries to manipulate domestic public opinion for its political interests, the “Red Penetration” of the CCP did not seem to have the expected effect. For example, in the upcoming 2020 Taiwan Presidential Election, 12 days before the election, the KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu’s poll did not lead the DPP and PFP candidates Tsai Ing-wen and Song Chu-yu. Instead, the KMT was 21.9% compare to DPP 52.5%, 30% behind the DPP. In short, the CCP use traditional media and new media to exert sharp power did not seem to play a role in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election.
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Figure 5 Tendency of the 2020 Taiwan Presidential Election (2019/12/30)
Source: 2020 台灣總統與立委大選, Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, 2019.
The outcome of the 2020 Taiwan Presidential election was won by current president Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai’s votes were as high as 8.17 million and 231 votes, which was determined to break the record of votes for the presidents of ROC all times. Although Han Kuo-yu was defeated, he also received 5.52 million and 2219 votes, surpassing the 3.81 million and 3365 votes by Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Wang Luxuan (王如玄) in 2016 Presidential election. In contrast to the 2016 Presidential election, the turnout rate was only 66.2%, 2020 turnout rate reached 74.9%.
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Figure 6 Results of 2020 Taiwan Presidential Election (2020/1/11)
Source:2020 總統大選：「蔡賴配」得票破馬英九紀錄，韓國瑜超越 2016 年的朱立
倫, 關鍵評論, 2020.
The special aspects of this election were coincided with the “sense of subjugation (亡 國感)” from Hong Kong, and the KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu violates his promise of “not leaving Kaohsiung”, and his attitudes toward China was uncleared, which letting young people no longer support him; however, due to the low morale of the KMT, the popularity of Han has given KMT supporters hope, and it has sent emotional projections to middle-aged and senior generation who have experienced the era of Taiwan’s economic take-off,
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resulting in many elders and children have cracked in relationship because of different political positions.
Referring to table 2, the 4 factors can explain why China’s sharp power is not productive in Taiwan with regard to the result of elections. Because Taiwan is a open civil society, people have the right to speech, so that the society will have the capability to counter disinformation and fake news; as the non-mandatory but active measures, it is easier for Taiwan to come up with countermeasures; in Taiwan, there is freedom of press, we allow Tsai Eng-meng to run newspaper in Taiwan, but China does not allow our newspaper to run over China, this is an asymmetric relationship; the purpose of the United Front is not to change political position but to team up with people having the same political stance. Therefore, the goal is to strengthen existing situation, both arouse patriotism and enhance opposition in Taiwan.
The incentives of the Chinese market and the fear of losing the right to work originated from the CCP, which pressured Taiwanese corporations, multinational companies, and entertainers working in China to express their political position and national identity. The CCP’s United Front strategy against Taiwan mainly uses public opinion warfare to combat the confidence and authority of the Taiwan government. The purpose is to attract Taiwan people to agree with CCP’s political interests. However, the CCP uses its market and right to work to compel others to express their opinion has not been successful in co-opting Taiwan people’s goodwill toward China, instead, it has led to more confrontation and ideology struggles in Taiwan.
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Figure 7 Changes in the Taiwanese/Chinese Identity of Taiwanese (2019/07/10)
Source: 臺灣民眾臺灣人/中國人認同趨勢分佈 (1992 年 06 月~2019 年 06 月）, Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, 2019.
According to a survey conducted by the Election Study Center in National Chengchi University, in 2018, about 55% of people in Taiwan identified themselves as Taiwanese, 38% of them considered themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 3.7%
considered themselves Chinese. For people considering themselves Chinese, it dropped from 26% in 1994 to only 3.7% in 2018. In short, sharp power has not achieved effect on Taiwan’s national identity issue, but has continued to decline.
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Figure 8 Independence Stance of Taiwanese (2019/07/10)
Source: 臺灣民眾統獨立場趨勢分佈(1994 年 12 月~2019 年 06 月), Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, 2019.
Also, it is noteworthy that in 2018, the number of people who pro-unification was 12.8%, the highest in the past 16 years, and the number of people who pro-independence was only 15.1%. However, in 2019, the number of people who pro-unification dropped to 8.7%, while those who pro-independence rose to 19.9%, the highest figure in 25 years.
That is to say, since 2019, the Taiwanese attitude towards unification has inclined. In other words, China’s sharp power does not seem to change Taiwanese tendency favor for unification which in line with China’s political interests.
Finally, through the above observations, it is found that although the CCP uses the right to work to directly exert pressure to the target, there are many cases that not started
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with the CCP’s first hand intervention, but by the Chinese netizens who first accused the target as “Taiwan independence”. Then, through the Internet and the pressure of public opinion, the targeted object eventually had to declare support for China’s political position.
Thus, it raises an argument that sharp power may not only belong to the state, but also can be operated by the ordinary people or certain groups.
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Chapter 5 Conclusion
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of China’s sharp power in Taiwan.
Especially Taiwan and China shared the same complex historical, and the “same language and same ethnic” background. Moreover, since 1949, Taiwan still has identity issue within the society. Furthermore, conforming to the V-Dem database, Taiwan is the country suffered the most false-information in the world. This revealing that CCP’s sharp power against Taiwan has entered a stage of intense heat, needed for attentions.
In Chapter 2, I compared the difference between sharp power, soft power and hard power.
In Chapter 3, I analyzed whether the United Front work is considered a kind of sharp power.
In Chapter 4, I explored the impact of China’s disinformation on Taiwan’s 2018 9-in-1 election, also China’s economic coercion on corporations and entertainers for agenda setting.
This study finds that:
(1) In order to analyze the difference between sharp power, soft power and hard power, you can distinguish by observing the political system, the degree of civil society openness, the mandatory and activeness behaviors of a country and the de-legitimation process. Due to the fact that totalitarian states are hardly open up to civil society, they stifle the public’s criticism of the government, control the news media, and lead the country’s external propaganda work.
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This draw our attention to the ways in which the Chinese government was not effectively promoting their soft power in the past. In Western democracies, what is regarded as soft power behavior, when it occurs in a country dominated by a totalitarian government, the government not only limits domestic civil liberty but also manipulate the perception of citizens of other countries. On account of this, a totalitarian state like China, even when exercising soft power, will be exposed by the international community as it is now and accused of wielding sharp power.
Unlike soft power and hard power, sharp power affects the political environment of other countries through non-mandatory but highly proactive measures, such as infiltration, inducement, and suppression. It is not like hard power, which uses economic and military power to compel others to comply with its will, nor it is like soft power, uses culture and value to attract others to follow.
However, the study also finds that in addition to differences in polities and behavioral patterns, China through its economic influence, whether the market inducement or acquisitions, funding, donations, etc., matching up with the guidelines of the country’s external development to influence either Chinese-friendly, infiltration or even coercion behaviors at many levels. Consequently, it is boldly inferred that the exercise of sharp power may be correlated with the hard power of a country. That is, sharp power, soft power and hard power are in a relationship of embeddedness. Thus, although we can clearly distinguish between the concepts of the three powers, we cannot assert a certain power is exercised independently from the others.
That is to say, the characteristics of China’s sharp power are:
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(a) The influence exerted by China in providing investment and job opportunities to people in other countries through economic and trade exchanges, including various resources provided for bribing senior government officials, that is, the comprehensive power of authoritarian countries, both utilize temptation and coercion on targets to make the other party obey the CCP’s will or self-censorship, to achieve its manipulation and influence of public opinion.
(b) China utilizes propaganda, disinformation, and other information operations to undermine democratic institutions and exploit cultural institutions to affect political activities in ways favorable to the interests of preserving the absolute authority of the CCP.
(2) Sharp power is actually a part of United Front work in terms of their ultimate goal, however, there are some differences regarding their appealing target and implementation modality.
When China’s sharp power is the ability to change the preferences, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, values, and predispositions of others through an involuntary measure; the United Front work also try to change the preference and predisposition of others (including foreign government, overseas Chinese communities, and other actors, such as political and social elites), by coercion and inducement (best scenario is that these overseas Chinese communities and foreign friends voluntarily advocate the CCP’s interests), make them adopt or support the positions and policies preferred by the Beijing authorities, and eliminating forces that may oppose CCP’s policy and ruling authority.
However, there are some differences regarding their appealing target and implementation modality. China’s sharp power primarily focusing on bribe political elites,
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use economic coercion, manipulate media, and fund think tanks to put pressure on these areas, seek to subvert and manipulate the narrative of the targeted country (foreign capitalists), through misrepresenting and distorting information to suppress dissent and debate, surreptitiously promoting a positive image of China; while the United Front mainly focusing on influence overseas Chinese, make them endorse or reinforce the stands and policies preferred by the Beijing authorities. The CCP uses these organizations as a shield, secretly exporting influence to infiltrate other countries. Including military organizations, cultural associations, academic groups, and Confucius Institutes, these officials/ semi-official organizations, are all engaged in overseas United Front work under the guidance of funding of the UFWD.
In conclusion, I argue that the China’s sharp power is a part of United Front operation in terms of their political purpose, which is to establish preferred positive image on China.
However, there are some concentrating difference in the appealing target and the implementing measures. For sharp power, I argue that these penetrating behaviors are in a
“direct” fashion that try to manipulate foreign country’s political environment and people’s idea, also through the self-censor mechanism to restrain freedom of speech, cripple the integrity of independent institutions; while the United Front work primarily concentrate on the overseas Chinese to emphasize “flesh-and-blood” bond, and ethnic, cultural, political and economic ties, to draw support from them, and then utilize them to voice for the CCP, in order to influence foreign government, I argue that these infiltration behaviors are in a
“indirect” fashion. In other words, China’s sharp power is a demonstration of overseas United Front work, therefore, in order to investigate the impact of sharp power in Taiwan, the CCP’s United Front work must be looked at.
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(3) The impact of China’s sharp power on Taiwan, from the case of the 2018 9-in-1 election and the use of right to work to compel entertainers and corporations to assert their political attitude and identity, it seems that it has not achieved the expected results, that is, make Taiwan society to have a more positive perception on China, so to change their identity and tendency for unification. Instead, the figure of pro-independence and consider themselves as Taiwanese have increased.
By collecting news, I found that China’s United Front work in Taiwan are mainly concentrated on waging information warfare, and the use of right to work to compel entertainers and corporations working in China. From this observation, the disinformation and economic coercion are exactly the demonstration of China’s sharp power.
China has used the measures of setting up content farms and creating fake accounts to penetrate Taiwan’s most popular used social media and communication software to disseminate fake information and biased information in order to create social confrontation and misunderstandings, enhance public grievances and attack Taiwan government, attempt to affect Taiwan’s political environment and public opinion. At the same time, China has infiltrated local media to buy advertisements and provide funds so that it can disseminate information and voices that are beneficial to China, in an attempt of influence Taiwanese perception about China.
However, the study found that China’s sharp power did not seem to have the tendency to affect Taiwan people’s favor and conform to its political stance. In other words, although much information and reports point out that China attempts to influence the 2018 local election in Taiwan and people’s favorability to China by disinformation and the help of the local media. Yet, the results of polls show that the impact of “sharp power” has not reached
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a positive effect, but a negative result. It does not indicate the negative result is the effect of sharp power either.
Also, has the CCP achieved the effect of influencing Taiwan’s election? In the 2018 9-in-1 election, part of the reason for the KMT’s volume was due to the integrating operation of CCP’s disinformation and the pro-China media to attack Tsai administration, thus, I argue that the China does help Han’s high discussing volume during the election, which in part caused the KMT won 15 seats of the 22 counties and cities. The DPP won only 6 seats, especially lost Kaohsiung, a city DPP has been governed for 20 years. Yet, it remains difficult for agencies to confirm that the 2018 9-in-1 election were influenced by China, in other words, it is difficult to prove that the constituents voting behavior was due to the piece of disinformation by China. More solid proof and research is still needed for the argument to be completed, same as the result of the 2020 Presidential election.
In the case of China use economic and right to work to compel whoever doing business in China to express their political stance, the poll results also indicate that China’s sharp power operation does not increase pro-Chinese identity and favored pro-unification political tendency toward China.
Finally, in my opinion, with the concept of de-legitimation, the purpose of CCP’s United Front against Taiwan is not merely to change political position, but to deal with two
Finally, in my opinion, with the concept of de-legitimation, the purpose of CCP’s United Front against Taiwan is not merely to change political position, but to deal with two