American and British officials are fighting the Chinese “cyber army” attempting to interfere in Taiwan’s upcoming presidential elections, the Washington Examiner has learned.
“It’s necessary,” retired Air Force Gen. Rob Spalding, who helped devise the Trump administration’s national security strategy in 2017, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a break from recent precedents.”
Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province ruled by “separatist forces,” is sure to be angered by the effort. Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom has formal diplomatic relations with Taipei because the mainland regime has never recognized the island’s independence, but the U.S. has maintained friendly relations with Taiwanese officials in an attempt to deter a Chinese invasion of the island.
The initiative is emblematic of how the State Department’s main anti-propaganda entity, the Global Engagement Center, in the view of key allies, has become more effective this year. Special envoy Lea Gabrielle, who was appointed in February, is credited with bringing the political clout needed to wrangle the federal government bureaucracy while coordinating with other governments.
“It was a great example of the American government being joined up in a way that I haven’t witnessed before,” a European diplomat told the Washington Examiner recently after a private GEC briefing for allied governments that featured the Department of Homeland Security.
“We are particularly pleased to see that our bilateral cooperation with the U.S. to counter disinformation and cyberattacks has been enhanced along the years,” a spokeswoman at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the U.S., told the Washington Examiner.
Chinese President Xi Jinping regards control of Taiwan — the last stronghold of the government overthrown when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949 — as “an inevitable requirement.” Chinese Communist authorities want incumbent Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who has overseen major arms deals with the U.S., to be defeated in the January elections.
“Our work on Taiwan was the most important work of ours — the infiltration into media, temples, and grassroots organizations,” Wang “William” Liqiang, a Chinese spy who defected to Australia, said last week.
U.S. and British officials are working with local media and non-profit organizations to “pre-but and inoculate” Taiwan against such foreign influence operations, according to a government official involved with the effort.
The State Department is reluctant to be specific. “The United States maintains many trusted relationships with a variety of international partners,” a State Department spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner. “We are working with several countries on understanding trends in election security and best defensive practices.”
Chinese disinformation efforts are particularly challenging for Taiwan because the propagandists speak the same language as the Taiwanese population. American officials regard Taiwan as an important partner in warning other countries about the threat posed by Chinese influence operations and cyberattackers.
“Taiwan recognized this long ago and banned Chinese-made telecommunications equipment from its infrastructure more than five years ago,” Jeff Campbell, a security expert in the State Department’s East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau, said this month at the 2019 Cyber Offensive and Defensive Exercises in Taipei. “It is only now that the rest of the world is beginning to follow Taiwan’s wise example.”
Taiwanese officials touted the partnership with the U.S. as a boon for other democratic countries and a sign of the beleaguered island’s value on the world stage. “We will continue to work with the U.S. and other like-minded countries to create an environment free from disinformation and cyberthreats in the Indo-Pacific region and the wider world,” the TECRO spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, the Washington Examiner reported that the elections in Taiwan were set for February. Taiwan’s elections, however, were actually set for January. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
