“The PRC shows a strategic preference for activities in cyberspace and other domains that gradually bolster its position over an extended period, prioritizing steady progress and cumulative gains over immediate, overt victories,” a report about PRC cyber activities by Booz Allen finds.
Taiwan’s new president taking office Monday, China began a social media and propaganda effort to convince the Taiwanese people and Taiwan’s supporters that any efforts to become independent would, in the words of the foreign minister, “pose the most serious challenge to the international order, the most dangerous change to the status quo in the Taiwan Straits, and the most significant disruption to peace in the Straits.”
The public offensive could be followed shortly, however, by more subtle manners of persuasion and interference, including the covert and widespread use of cyber tools against individuals, companies, the military and government organizations seen to be pushing independence, if recent history recounted in a new report from US defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton is any indication.
The report, titled “How to Succeed at Annexation Without Really Trying: The PRC’s Taiwan Cyber Strategy Explained” and published earlier this month, analyzes the online arm of China’s quest to control Taiwan. And while the report said that China is unlikely to use cyber alone to win against Taiwan, one of the report’s authors described it Friday to Breaking Defense as a “critical tool in the PRC [People’s Republic of China] strategy.”
“And, as this is very much perceived as a long-term strategy, you know, potentialy over decades, it’s difficult to say will it eventually succeed?” said the author, who was not identified in the report and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The report said Beijing would likely use the fact that Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, comes into office with a divided legislature to its advantage. While his party, the DPP, won a plurality of the vote, at 40.1 percent, the Kuomintang (KMT) came in second, at 33.5 percent, while the new Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) scored an impressive 26.5 percent.
This divided government provides “new opportunities for the PRC to shape this new power relationship, to keep Taiwan within its sphere,” the report says. (Lai used his inaugural address to tell China to back off.)
During the last election, when Tsai Eng-wen won the presidency and the legislature was dominated by the DPP, China used a mix of cyber and kinetic forms of pressure, the author said.
“The PRC did not try to spark a war with Taiwan, but they greatly increased incursions in Taiwanese airspace, put their navy near Taiwan, essentially trying to, say, ‘Don’t you stray too far. You know, you may be on this path right now. But don’t forget that we can also increase pressure on you,’” the author said.
So far today China seems to have reacted with military restraint, according to the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense.
