Chapter 4 A Case Study of Taiwan
4.1 Sharp Power and the United Front work in Taiwan
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to establish preferred positive image on China. However, there are some concentrating difference in the appealing target and the implementing measures.
Consequently, in order to investigate the impact of sharp power in Taiwan, the CCP’s United Front work must be covered. Especially Taiwan and China shared the same complex historical, and the “same language and same ethnic” background. Furthermore, since 1949, Taiwan still has identity issue within the society. In this background, it is more conform to the United Front strategy of the CCP, that is, the concentration on the “overseas Chinese”.
The CCP’s infiltration of the United Front in Taiwan is quite serious, which has put Taiwan’s national security in acute vulnerability. For example, politicians and media from certain political parties in Taiwan, many “red-top politicians (紅頂政客)”, scholars, and celebrities have actually become the CCP’s political agent in Taiwan. In general, their propensity to infiltrate Taiwan is, in the name of reunification, actually helping the CCP implement the strategy of conquering Taiwan. This is what the CCP’s sharp power has bought and is currently doing（郭曜榮，2017）.
4.1 Sharp Power and the United Front work in Taiwan
Recently, more and more news reports and national security documents have pointed out that China’s sharp power influence and the infiltration of the United Front have become increasingly serious in Taiwan. As indicated by Bowe (2018, p.18), “The CCP is active in waging information warfare against Taiwan to suppress independence movements, undermine Taiwan’s government, and recruit politicians in Taiwan and third countries to advocate for China’s preferred cross-Strait outcome: unification of Taiwan with the
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Mainland”. The CCP’s United Front activities against Taiwan include sponsoring Taiwanese with free trip to China and providing trade orders and job opportunities (Blanchard, 2018). In addition, the United Front operation against Taiwan also includes lobbying activities in third countries to change the international community’s discourse of Taiwan’s international status. To illustrate, Huang Xiangmo, the chairman of the CCPRC, sponsored a reunification event held in the Tasmanian Parliament in October 2017 and advocated that Taiwan should be reunified with China (John Dotson, 2018). Furthermore, China’s United Front work in Taiwan includes sponsoring organized criminal activities to stir up inter-ethnic conflict and destabilize society, by using threats, violence, disinformation and even democratic instruments, these groups seek to intimidate civilians and elected officials in the pursuit of their objectives (June Teufel Dreyer, 2018b; Michael Cole, 2017a). For instance, Chinese Unity Promotion Party (CUPP) and the Patriot Alliance Association (PAA) once mobilized 200 people, consisting of gangsters and pro-Chinese people, to protest against Hong Kong social movement leaders Joshua Wong and pro-self-determination Hong Kong legislators(Michael Cole, 2017b).
In Taiwan, from the experience of the local elections in 2018, the CCP has been good at using operational “opposition” to manipulate public opinion, and its purpose is not solely to promote China’s positive image or crack down on specific political parties. It is through
“fostering imaginary communities on specific issues, gaining community trust, disseminating fake news”, and using various kinds of false information to stimulate the opposition and even the mobilization of the Taiwan people, thereby achieving a strategy of
“attacking democracy with democracy” （曾于蓁，2019，頁 6）. This assertion is unanimous with Cole’s argument that “seek to turn Taiwan’s democracy against itself”
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(Michael Cole, 2014). The USCC (U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission) 2018 annual report also confirmed the argument that “China is also intensifying its political warfare activities in Taiwan. Beijing has employed a variety of tactics seeking to undermine Taiwan’s democracy, and the Tsai Administration in particular, including supporting opposition political parties and spreading disinformation using social media and other online tools” (USCC, 2018, p.30).
These “Chinese termites” lurking in all corners of Taiwan for a long time have created false rumors in the name of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, use the characteristics of instant social networking to deliver information, instigate and control public opinion, and distort rational discussion of public issues. At the same time, the media supported by China cooperated in political operations, disseminated unchecked fake news, and created more contradictions, antagonisms and conflicts in Taiwan society （陳隆志，
2018）.
In this section, I will gather news about the influence of Sharp power and the United Front in Taiwan by collecting online news via searching Chinese and English keywords:
Sharp power (銳實力), and United Front (統戰). The time range of the data is from December 2017 to December 2019. The reason for choosing this period is that the word
“sharp power” has been reported by the Economist and the National Endowment for Democracy Foundation at approximately the same time since December 2017. Since then, the news media has paid more attention to the “United Front” reports as well. The table is organized by means of impact and the comment to Sharp power and the United Front. The two most discussed issues are selected for analysis in the next two sections.
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Table 6 News Concerning Sharp power and the United Front work in Taiwan
Date Media Headline Sender
Country
Target Country
Means Comment Citation
Jan 6, 2018
Apple Daily What can Taiwan do regarding
China Taiwan Chinese spy:
Chinese think tank staff uses their stay in Taiwan to investigate freedom, and as the Economist suggests,
China Taiwan China has proposed 31 Incentives Policy for Taiwan, hoping to use high salaries to attract Taiwan's
professionals. It is not difficult to imagine that these entangled Taiwanese may become China's helpers in influencing Taiwan's in the future.
At present, it seems that the means of sharp power can only disrupt the public opinion of other countries in the short term (such as increasing
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strength may not be enough.China Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen pass by one of the 85 Café in Los Angeles before her trip to visit Belize, which caused enterprises is not a proper manifestation
China Taiwan Beijing is trying to meddle from within as the island’s voters is seeking to corrode Taiwan’s body
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debate in a number of western countriesbecause of its fragile and challenging
China Taiwan Taiwanese bake Wu Pao-chun went to Shanghai to open a
State clearly your
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new shop, but because of an article published by a Shanghai self-media say that “rather starve than come to Mainland”, he was alleged “Independent Bread”, Chinese
people resisted buying.
To this end, Wu later issued a statement stressing that “I am proud of being a Chinese”, “I support 1992 Consensus”,
“both sides of the strait are a family”. have to pretend to support 1992 facing the loss of diplomatic countries
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China Taiwan Namely, moderators of such Facebook pages report being
approached by unusual Facebook accounts, asking them if they would be willing to sell their pages. In particular, such Taiwan, leading to the suspicion that these to try and promote pro-unification views in Taiwan as part of its “United Front” strategies
China Taiwan Taiwan’s media environment, the local elections in 2018, Taiwan’s social
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Taiwan News Taiwan should move to restrict disinformation spread by China-funded media: US scholar.
China Taiwan The talks focused mainly on elections and how it is trying to influence the presidential and acquire the ability to correctly process last two attacks: the collecting of private to different groups of
Among the solutions Shen proposes to deal with China’s tactics is the
enacting of a foreign agent registration
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Yahoo News CCP spy revealed the fact that they had infiltrate Taiwan’s election.
（中共間諜爭議 揭露對台滲透介 選的事實）
China Taiwan Chinese spy Wang Liqiang seeks political asylum in Australia, as he admits that Beijing used to carry out are resistant to obey and succumb to Beijing, and then raise and cultivate political forces willing to obey or even vassal to
China Taiwan For Beijing, the better option is to apply non-violent coercion, through the pillage of Taiwan’s diplomatic
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promise to look at China’s Taiwan Strait, etc., to undermine the reluctant to go to wars with extremely
China Taiwan The internet celebrity Potter co-produced with President Tsai Ing-wen recently, but because of calling her
“president” in the video, he was pressured by the Chinese partners (Papitube) to delete the video. Potter was raged and not willing to cater to the Chinese side, he later decided to terminate the
Source: organized by the author.
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Direct pressure from the CCP on Taiwan is often counterproductive and fails to achieve its intended goals. Therefore, indirect pressure is progressively becoming an important mode of operation. The central idea of the United Front is to “unite the secondary enemies to fight against the main enemy”, also “crumble the enemy from inside”. Thus, the CCP through the means of cajolement and infiltration to co-opt “Local confederates (在地協力者)”, plant contradictions within the society. Local confederates here refer to the CCP’s “cultivation” of various political, business, academic, traditional media, and even religious groups that support its political stance, making it an agent voice for the CCP’s political behavior in Taiwan. For example, the authority subsidizes air ticket, encouraging Taiwan businessmen to return to Taiwan to vote, or through the Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) in Taiwan to carrying out propaganda activities in Taipei Main Station, or through Local media to report news partially comply with Beijing’s political stance. These means of indirect pressure can also be called “agent mode”.
On the other side, the CCP uses the “information warfare” approach (new media) to take advantages of Taiwan’s free and open society, through purchasing highly popular Facebook communities, Professional Technology Temple Online Bulletin Board (PTT), establish content farms, or via advertising company, Line groups, to disseminate fake polls, false information, or biased information, in order to manipulate the trend of public opinion in Taiwan. For instance, using Facebook fans group of Han Kuo-yu (the 2020 Taiwan President KMT Candidate) to spread false information of “the vote of persistent vegetable state electorate will be drawn out of the box”, for the purpose of attacking Tsai’s administration （黃順祥，2019）.
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By collecting the news above regarding the influence of CCP on Taiwan, it can be observed from two aspects: external and internal threats. Externally, the CCP had adopted a relatively low-cost military deterrence and matched up with high-level diplomatic, political and economic pressures; internally, the new media and traditional media are used to disseminate controversial information, manipulate Taiwan’s public opinion, and strengthen its penetration in Taiwan society, through its local political agents to conduct a variety of words and deeds to affect the morale of the people in Taiwan also interfere with elections.
The concept of sharp power and the United Front here is the use of aggressive and subversive policies, such as “infiltration”, “bribery” and “co-option” to arouse internal confrontation in Taiwan and manipulate public opinion, create ideological conflict. This strategy not only deviated from the discussion significance of the issue per se but also limits the space for rational discussion or the position of a third party in a democratic system. To sum up, regarding the impact of the CCP’s sharp power and the United Front in Taiwan, the author summarizes the two most discussed issues in the country: (1) the CCP used disinformation interfering Taiwan’s 9-in-1 election in 2018; (2) the CCP used the right to work influencing Taiwan’s public opinion. These two issues are respectively discussed in section 4.2 and 4.3.