On Feb. 2 last year, two submarine cables connecting Taiwan and Lienchiang County were snagged and severed by a Chinese fishing trawler and a cargo ship. The Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI) said this was no coincidence, but a “gray zone” tactic by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in rehearsal to cut off Taiwan from the Internet.
The National Communications Commission said that the No. 2 and 3 cables were severed by a Chinese fishing trawler and an unidentified cargo ship.
In an article submitted to Foreign Policy magazine, AEI security specialist Elisabeth Braw wrote that the severing of the cables could be deliberate harassment or a practice run for cutting off Taiwan’s communications with the outside world, adding that this could be the first step in China attempting an armed invasion of Taiwan.
Even in times of peace, it is a challenge to repair submarine Internet cables. What scenario could befall an isolated, disconnected Taiwan?
The movie Leave the World Behind was released on Netflix on Nov. 24 last year. The title was translated in Chinese as Duanxun (斷訊, or “disconnected”). The film tries to realistically depict a modern society cut off from all outside information. On the surface, everything appears normal, but there are several invisible “sinkholes” that lead to gradual collapse. Some characters in the movie seem unable to understand the imminent terror.
The scenario describes Taiwan’s situation. The prelude to last month’s presidential and legislative elections included a “war and peace” cognitive warfare effort of the CCP, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party, which disseminated disinformation in a network attack to drown out a Taiwanese consciousness.
A report by CloudFlare, a multinational Internet security firm headquartered in San Francisco, titled the DDoS Threat report for 2023 Q4, showed that distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks targeting Taiwan from October to December last year rose 624 percent from the third quarter as the elections approached and amid strained ties with China. On an annual basis, attacks last year increased 3,370 percent from 2022, making Taiwan the fourth-largest target in the world behind Singapore, the US and Canada.
DDoS attacks are a network attack method aimed at overwhelming or overloading a target’s network or system resources, causing a disruption or cessation of services that leads to users being unable to normally access a Web site or computer. They are like an Internet traffic jam, intended to create social fear and disruption.
However, in the elections, Taiwanese shrugged off the CCP’s threats, maintaining a momentary lifeline for the homegrown, representative Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Nonetheless, voters have “refused to learn” and are heading in their own direction.
After the elections, “banning Douyin” became a topic of debate, yet the DPP’s central executive committee says that doing so would greatly alienate younger voters, so an outright ban of the Chinese app and the parent company of TikTok would be impractical.
How can the DPP have a dialogue with younger voters and win them over?
National Cheng Kung University academic Lee Tsung-hsien (李宗憲) said that China is interfering in Taiwan’s elections, but the government continues to put its faith in freedom of speech.
Using misinformation to “isolate Taiwan” is an effective tactic. When the CCP spreads it far and wide, genuine information about Taiwan is drowned out, leaving people disconnected from reality.
Chen Ching-kuen is a university assistant professor.
Translated by Tim Smith
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