NGO experts brief National Press Club on Taiwan’s experience with foreign interference and information manipulation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WASHINGTON (April 8, 2024) — This year is a global election year. Over 60 democratic countries, including the United States, will hold elections. At this critical moment, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States assisted NGO experts to hold a press briefing to share Taiwan’s experience in countering foreign interference and information manipulation in the 2024 elections at the National Press Club.
The event was moderated by Global Taiwan Institute Executive Director Russell Hsiao and featured Doublethink Lab Analyst Lead Shun-Ching Yang, IORG Co-Director Chihhao Yu, Taiwan FactCheck Center CEO Eve Chiu, Cofacts Co-founder Billion Lee and member of the Research Committee of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau Wen-Ping Liu. Around 50 mainstream American media journalists in Washington attended, and the exchange of opinions was lively.
In the briefing, the experts stressed that Taiwan successfully completed the presidential and legislative elections in January this year. However, during the election, China continued to use "U.S. skepticism," "The choice between war and peace," and other disinformation slogans on the internet in an attempt to influence the election and divide the people of Taiwan. Taiwan’s resilience was exemplified in resisting China’s information manipulation by the world’s most mature communities of fact checkers, high public media literacy and robust public-private partnerships. In addition, experts also pointed out China’s possible methods of information warfare against democratic countries such as the United States.
The experts from Taiwan also put forward suggestions on how China may launch disinformation campaigns against democratic countries such as the United States and how Taiwan and the United States can cooperate in countering disinformation. These valuable contributions are particularly relevant at this special moment when the two countries are commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act. Taiwan especially hopes to strengthen cooperation with friends from all walks of life in the United States to prevent and counter disinformation and deepen the robust and vigorous Taiwan-U.S. relationship.
Journalists asked questions about Taiwan's countermeasures and effectiveness in responding to China's information manipulation and how the United States may respond to potential similar election interference attempts in their own election this year. Participants believe that dealing with information manipulation by authoritarian countries on elections in democratic countries is indeed an important challenge, and Taiwan’s first-hand experience is of high referential value.
This event was also broadcast live on TECRO’s Facebook page. The link is as follows: https://www.facebook.com/TECRO.USA/videos/436850609001000
