China turns Taiwan’s own voices against it in information war

As Chinese warships and fighter jets staged massive drills around Taiwan in December, a parallel action was unfolding on smartphone screens.

On Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, a news outlet run by the Chinese Communist Party posted a 51-second video of Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun accusing President Lai Ching-te of inviting Chinese aggression. Lai, Cheng said, was “dragging all 23 million of us” in Taiwan into a “dead end, a ​road to death” by pursuing independence. The clip quickly surfaced on Facebook, YouTube and other platforms popular in Taiwan.

Chinese state media outlets are increasingly amplifying Taiwanese critics of the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), including influencers and politicians linked to the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), according to five Taiwanese security officials and data from ‌Taipei-based research group IORG that was shared with Reuters.

Read more at Reuters