China has launched a misinformation campaign that includes news reports that Taiwan’s president has an “escape plan” in the event of a Chinese invasion, aiming to sap morale as Beijing presses the nation to accept its sovereignty, Taiwanese officials said.
Taiwan is on high alert for what it sees as China’s attempts to sway local public opinion, including through illicitly funding Beijing-friendly candidates in the run-up to the presidential election in January, security reports reviewed by Reuters last month showed.
Taiwan is later this month to hold its most important annual military exercises, known as the Han Kuang drills, that are to include, for the first time, the temporary shutdown of its main international airport in a simulation of repelling enemies, as Beijing ramps up military pressure on Taipei.
Photo provided by the Kinmen Defense Command
Starting in May, news reports that include misinformation on military activities by Taiwan and its main ally, the US, have surfaced in Chinese state media, part of a campaign to sway opinion in Taiwan, several Taiwanese officials with direct knowledge of the matter said.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) did not respond to a request for comment.
At least a dozen of the news reports have said the Han Kuang exercises were an “escape rehearsal” for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and evacuation drills for US citizens in the event of a Chinese invasion, said the officials, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
“They want to portray the Han Kuang exercises as a rehearsal for an escape plan,” one of the officials familiar with Taiwan’s security planning said, adding that Beijing’s aim was to create panic and weaken public trust in Taiwanese leadership.
The American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy in Taipei, declined to comment.
Some of the media reports were first published by online news sites run by the TAO before appearing in media outlets in Taiwan and Hong Kong, according to the officials and a Reuters review of the reports.
The officials said the Chinese campaign was overseen by Beijing’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, which is chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and carried out by government units, including the TAO.
The Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement to Reuters that Beijing is always trying to “damage the prestige of our government, divide Taiwanese society and weaken the support of the international community.”
“The government will immediately clarify false information, and use specific actions to show its determination to defend itself,” it added.
The Taiwanese officials also dismissed as “propaganda” at least 10 reports by Chinese and Taiwanese news outlets in the past few weeks that have said Beijing is capable of destroying an entire US carrier group in the Pacific with 24 ballistic missiles, citing a research paper based on a computer-
generated war simulation published by a Chinese university linked to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Researchers who work closely with Taiwanese security officials have spent weeks trying to verify the report with computer-aided simulations, but failed to recreate similar results, the sources said, calling the reports part of “Chinese propaganda” ahead of Taiwan’s military exercises.
“They want to sell fear,” said one of the sources, a senior official familiar with Taiwan’s security planning.
“They want us to give up making preparations and surrender right away,” the official said.
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