Taiwan’s real concern is Chinese manipulation, not invasion

The persistent narrative in Western media regarding Taiwan portends that a Chinese invasion of the island is highly likely within the next five years. However, according to China and East Asia expert Friso Stevens, Taiwan’s concern is not a Chinese invasion but rather manipulation.

The prevailing notion that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is all but certain to occur in the next five years stems from undisclosed intelligence from the American defence establishment, mostly by pointing to the assessment of one source: the head of US Indo-Pacific Command.1 This narrative is kept in the news cycle by think tankers, news commentators, and China hawks in the US Congress.

Yet, the People’s Liberation Army being ordered to be “ready to invade” by 2027,2 augmenting China’s capacity to do so, does not mean a decision has been made. Surely, it is every military’s duty to be able and ready to defend the nation’s territory, which is how China views Taiwan.

Nobody here fears an invasion in the next five to ten years, unless Taiwan declares independence

Still, what really surprised me when I asked the Taiwanese themselves during five weeks of research interviews, is that nobody here fears an invasion in the next five to ten years, unless Taiwan declares independence. Over the course of my interviews conducted in Taipei, I spoke with ministers, top officials and more than a dozen security experts.

Part of this relates to the military reality in the Taiwan Strait.

An amphibious landing is one of the most difficult operations to pull off. In the first phase, you encounter tremendous enemy fire. And even if you do manage to establish a beachhead, your supply lines are vulnerable to flank attacks. The US could fulfil the latter role.

Chinese military plans centre on taking Taipei quickly before the Americans can intervene. However, there are only two stretches of coast near the capital where landings are possible with a limited number of soldiers. Additionally, the Taiwanese vice president-elect, Hsiao Bi-khim, assured me that all new procurement would be of the kind of weapons that have proven so effective in Ukraine, such as mobile missile launchers.

If an invasion is so unlikely, why is China systematically intimidating Taiwan in the air and at sea?

It is precisely that: intimidation, for the purpose of undermining the morale of Taiwan’s citizens. These actions in the physical domain are further reinforced by Chinese misinformation, conveying the notion that China is simply too strong; resistance is futile and costly.

All my interlocutors affirmed that China’s hybrid manipulation is the real danger to Taiwan’s security. This was also echoed in the interviews with fifteen students in their early twenties at both the campus of National Taiwan University and National Chengchi University. According to China’s Sanzhong Yiqing subversion plan,3 one of its main targets is Taiwan’s new generation that identifies as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.4

“Since we are little, we hear news that China will invade Taiwan, but it never happened,” said Angela Huang, “so I don’t worry about it too much. It is more the Americans and Europeans that care about this issue. For most Taiwanese, we are used to it.”

They requested the removal of 58,000 fake accounts from social media platforms within a year that were pushing (automated, copied) pro-China content

Shih Yun agreed and said that “most Taiwanese think that [the Taiwan issue] can be resolved peacefully”. Instead, he added, “China tries cultural promotion via their apps and platforms to make Taiwanese people think China is not that scary”.

Students who identified themselves as Chen and Hu worried about the hidden messages on Chinese apps such as TikTok and Little Red Book. The apps are popular among many of their friends, they said, because access to their content is convenient and fun.

Puma Shen, a lawmaker for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who was previously a misinformation expert at DoubleThink Lab, informed me that they requested the removal of 58,000 fake accounts from social media platforms within a year that were pushing (automated, copied) pro-China content. This is especially an uphill battle because, unlike Facebook and YouTube, the Chinese platforms are unresponsive to such requests.

This is where the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party comes in, a party in which half of its registered members are second or third generation waishengren (Mainlanders, or ‘outside province people’) who strongly believe in the idea of a ‘One China’ that includes both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

In the weeks before Taiwan’s January 13 elections, the KMT advanced the narrative that voting for the DPP, which has been a vocal critic of China over the past eight years, would be a vote for war. Another narrative suggested that the progressives were too close to the United States, and that, as a KMT scholar lamented, the US would “abandon Taiwan again”, referring to the 1979 US abrogation of its defence treaty with Taiwan.

China amplified these Kuomintang narratives through social media, in particular via private groups on messaging apps like LINE and WeChat (which makes monitoring by third parties near impossible).

It is not invasion but information penetration that (...) is the concern in Taiwan

The DPP’s loss of majority in parliament means that the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), that came in third, has a crucial say in passing the budget and bills. Saliently, led by populist firebrand Ko Wen-je, this party has never criticised China.

Most of the students I spoke with voted for the TPP. Many pointed to the negativity surrounding the DPP, with some reproducing rumours of alleged corruption. They also brought up the appeal of Ko Wen-je’s persona. How they became familiar with his funny videos? Social media.

Hence, it is not invasion but information penetration that, together with ‘useful parrots’, is the concern in Taiwan, offering lessons for other democracies.

• 1Here it is important to note that in the assessment of intelligence, one can disagree. There are also different degrees of certainty. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy and FBI have concluded that a Wuhan lab leak is the ‘most likely’ origin of COVID-19, while other US agencies doubt this and lean more toward the natural origin thesis (a wet market). Seen in this light, one could view the Indo-Pacific commander’s fierce rhetoric as one part played (agenda-setting) in a broader US effort to drum up international support for a tougher line on China.
• 2Jesse Johnson, ‘China on track to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, U.S. commander says’, The Japan Times, 21 March 2024.
• 3This involves the grassroots mobilisation campaigns we know from the classic Marxist-Maoist texts. San Zhong Yiqing (Three Middles and One Youth) refers to the three groups in society plus the new generation that need to be rallied to China’s cause: people with small and medium-sized enterprises; people with low and middle incomes; people living in the middle and south of Taiwan, and young people. After 2017, the emphasis that needed to be put on the Taiwan’s youth was underscored by the introduction of the dictum Yidai Yixian (Youth Generation: Frontline). The only English-language work I could find on this is by Jukka Aukia, ‘China’s hybrid influence in Taiwan: Non-state actors and policy responses’, Hybrid CoE Research Report 9, April 2023.
• 4See further Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, ‘Taiwanese / Chinese Identity (1992/06~2023/12)’, Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, 22 February 2024.