China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan is becoming more diverse, expanding from efforts to influence via mostly personal bilateral exchanges to web-based propaganda, according to a study authored by Taiwanese researchers that was published in the Journal of Global Security Studies this month.
According to Hung Tzu-wei (???), associate research fellow at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, China has been conducting more cognitive operations, which is considered to include using public opinion and psychological means, towards internet users.
Hung, co-author of the study titled “How China’s Cognitive Warfare Works: A Frontline Perspective of Taiwan’s Anti-Disinformation Wars,” told CNA that for instance, China had created a new type of content farms that features useful life hacks and encyclopedia-like but filtered knowledge.
This sort of content is distributed by websites such as kknews and read01 which do not aim to disseminate disinformation or low-quality articles but useful daily information, Hung said.
He noted the content is mainly plagiarized from academic and commercial publications as well as the posts of millions of users of the WeChat social media app, which are already censored by Beijing and have passed the filter of the Great Firewall.
China-approved narratives — such as selected facts about how the United States betrays its allies — are embedded in the content which then becomes Taiwanese internet users’ key knowledge sources when googling in Chinese, according to Hung.
It creates a China-friendly information space that affects Taiwanese readers without their being conscious of it, Hung said.
Hung warned that young people could be vulnerable to this kind of manipulation because they stay on the Internet longer and are more exposed to disinformation.
China has also become more skilled in stirring up negative sentiment in Taiwanese people against their government instead of simply inspiring positive feelings toward China, as the former has been considered as more effective.
In response to China’s cognitive operations, Hung urged Taiwanese society to “remain cautious instead of overly anxious.”
Taiwan’s government can develop more intervention measures, he advised, including improving transparency, maintaining fair competition for content providers, raising barriers for attackers and local collaborators, as well as encouraging democratization in China.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel