For the past several years, China has continuously been waging cognitive warfare against the world, with Taiwan bearing the brunt of the attacks. At a symposium held by the DPP’s Department of Chinese Affairs, a number of experts and scholars provided their analyses of the CCP’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan and ways to defend against it.
National Chengchi University (NCCU) Development Studies Graduate Institute associate professor and Acting Chair Huang Jaw-nian (黃兆年) pointed out that the NCCU’s network has been affected by cyberattacks in recent years. He said his own laboratory’s hard drive has been attacked by unknown hackers. Huang believes these circumstances are not unique to the NCCU, as Taiwan’s university networks are relatively open and therefore an easy target.
Huang added that this is likely only the tip of the iceberg of the extent of China’s digital authoritarianism and that they are attempting to enact geopolitical hegemony against democratic nations. He suggested that Taiwan should establish a digital democracy defense mechanism by prohibiting the import of Chinese software and hardware equipment and strengthening Taiwan’s information security.
Kuma Academy co-founder Marco Ho (何澄輝) explained that cognitive warfare has become a core component of China’s overall warfare strategy. He said that technology and social media apps enable China to continuously produce large amounts of shortform content. Furthermore, it is not only easy to generate fake news but also makes the material difficult to verify, especially given the speed at which information proliferates and evolves online. He suggested more institutional safeguards and stressed the importance of strengthening media literacy among the public.