The nation’s intelligence chief yesterday said that some local Internet celebrities are being paid by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to conduct “cognitive warfare” campaigns in Taiwan and help Beijing spread propaganda.
National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said that one example happened in early March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when a Taiwanese Internet celebrity on TikTok claimed that the Chinese government was offering to evacuate Taiwanese from the European nation.
The NSB later found that the TikTok celebrity was not in Ukraine, but based in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, Chen said, adding that the person had been trained by the CCP to use social media to spread propaganda as part of its “united front” efforts.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The NSB has a full grasp on such “cognitive warfare” campaigns, and related authorities are investigating, Chen said, without elaborating.
Chen made the comments at the legislature in Taipei in response to a report in the Taipei Times and the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) that Beijing has been training and paying Taiwanese to influence young Taiwanese on media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Little Red Book, also known as Xiaohongshu, the Chinese equivalent of Instagram.
A number of high-profile Taiwanese YouTube celebrities based in China attended the fifth Cross-Strait Youth Development Forum in Hangzhou, China, on Wednesday, during which they shared their successes in running their social media platforms while encouraging more young Taiwanese to join them, the report said.
The report quoted Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers, who called on the government to come up with measures to counter China’s use of Taiwanese Internet celebrities to conduct “cognitive warfare” against young Taiwanese.
The forum was joined by about 450 guests and youth representatives from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, including former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), Chinese media reports said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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