Beijing is using its “22 guidelines,” designed to punish “die-hard” Taiwanese independence separatists, to target active-duty Taiwanese military personnel, a cross-strait expert said yesterday.
Similar tactics by China intended to threaten or harm morale are expected to increase in the coming weeks ahead of Double Ten National Day next month, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said.
The Chinese Ministry of State Security on Monday posted a message on WeChat accusing a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of launching cyberattacks against China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year.
Photo: Reuters
The group was seeking to seize control of Web sites, electronic billboards, and other devices and platforms to spread disinformation to sow division in China and distrust in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the ministry said.
The ministry added that “Anonymous 64” is a front for the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense’s Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command, a claim the defense ministry denied.
The Chinese state security ministry also identified three people it said are members of the Taiwanese military, adding that it was investigating them for alleged involvement in the cyberattacks.
Beijing said the investigation was necessary to ensure that its anti-separatist guidelines are thoroughly implemented.
“This is a typical cognitive warfare tactic that China uses against Taiwan. Only this time, they are poisoning the well by pre-emptively claiming the hackers are from Taiwan,” Wu said. “It serves no other purpose than to confuse Taiwanese, affect their morale and cause them to lose trust in their government.”
The CCP’s tactics to punish advocates of Taiwanese independence have had a limited effect and are more a formality, Wu said.
“It is likely that these tactics were rolled out to influence what President William Lai (賴清德) would say in his Double Ten National Day address next month and pressure the Democratic Progressive Party government,” he said.
The government should closely watch whether the incident would serve as an example of how the CCP would incriminate Taiwanese for supporting Taiwanese independence, namely by distributing photographs of people that they allege have committed crimes without providing specific evidence, he said.
“The difference this time is that none of the three people are on the list of ‘die-hard’ separatists or have political influence. It shows that active-duty military personnel could be incriminated based on the anti-separatist guidelines,” he said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS