How a Chinese Operative Secretly Infiltrated a Newsroom

Taiwanese authorities are investigating reports that a Chinese state-backed journalist has been wielding her influence behind the scenes at a Taiwanese broadcaster to push Chinese propaganda surreptitiously to Taiwanese audiences.

China ’s Taiwan Affairs Office had approached several Taiwanese broadcasters with proposals to launch political talk shows in Taiwan—and to sweeten the deal, they offered to give the show preferential commercial treatment in the Chinese market, according to Liberty Times , a sister paper of the Taipei Times .

One Taiwanese broadcaster reportedly accepted the proposal, and so began the influence operation. Zhao Bo, a reporter for Xinhua, a Chinese state news agency, arrived at the broadcaster and directly edited content for the show, including scripts, according to the report. The production team wasn’t told her identity or her purpose of her work, according to Taipei Times .

But she reportedly made sure that guests followed the agreed-upon scripts and held private conversations with guests in order to emphasize her point. One of the programs focused on the policies of former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and his trip to China.

But now that Taiwanese authorities have caught wind of her activities, she has reportedly fled the island back to China.

Taiwan’s National Communications Commission (NCC) is probing the incident, but has not identified the broadcaster. Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng confirmed in a statement that a multi-agency investigation would be launched.

The incident raises questions about just how much Chinese actors have infiltrated the information space in Taiwan as China continues to wield its influence and propaganda arms to indoctrinate the Chinese perspective in Taiwan.

“If Xinhua News Agency is blatantly sending people to monitor Taiwanese media and openly intervene [in their operations], then China is manipulating what gets said in political commentary programs, which is of course illegal,” said Rosalia Wu, the head of the Democratic Progressive Party caucus in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, according to Radio Free Asia .

China has historically seized the opportunity to offer financial benefits to news outlets in Taiwan in order to platform Chinese influence aimed at Taiwanese audiences, according to Scott Harold, a political scientist and Associate Director of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy at RAND.

“Many of the companies that are in the media space in Taiwan have a need for advertising… print media is obviously a challenged and a challenging environment in which to raise funds,” Harold told The Daily Beast, adding there is a “need for advertising dollars or advertising revenues—China can provide that, and has often sought to leverage that for influence.”

Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Puma Shen said Zhao Bo’s work is likely not an isolated incident. Shen suggested that while this incident is quite brazen, China also leans on “middlemen” to carry out its influence operations in Taiwan, making them harder to thwart.

China has dismissed the allegations, claiming that the entire story about Zhao Bo is “fake news.” Instead, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office suggested the broadcaster acted alone. “They wantonly frame, intimidate and punish media outlets that hold different positions,” spokesperson Zhu Fenglian told reporters.

Taiwan has dealt with alleged Chinese influence in Taiwanese news outlets before. In 2019, Want Want China Times , a media conglomerate whose chair has spouted pro-China opinions in the past, sued The Financial Times for reporting that some of its outlets were seeking approvals on stories and angles from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, according to The Diplomat. (In this case, too, Want Want said the claims were “fake news.) The NCC has fined Want Want media outlets in the past as well for allegedly inaccurate or unfair coverage.

BEHAVE, OR ELSE

News of the influence operation comes just days after Chinese authorities announced that they may go so far as to issue the death penalty for “diehard” Taiwan independence separatists, raising alarm bells in Taiwan about Chinese designs against Taiwan’s sovereignty.

It’s possible that the announcement is just a flashy PR campaign to try thwarting separatist campaigns and chilling any separatist ambitions. (China doesn’t have jurisdiction in Taiwan.)

But for Beijing, that may be the whole point. China has long been working to convince Taiwanese audiences that improved relations and potential unification with China have benefits. It’s part of a broach approach China takes against Taiwan that isolates, coerces, and uses grey zone pressures —every lever of power below the level of armed conflict.

And it’s all about warming Taiwanese audiences up to the idea that unification with China is the easiest path ahead, Harold said.

“China has a holistic, whole of government effort to try to use every tool in its toolkit to woo Taiwan’s society—and to intimidate Taiwan’s society—to create an impression that Taiwan has no future apart from rejoining (or joining in many in Taiwan's view) and to conclude that you cannot hope to resist China,” Harold said.

It’s not just the apparent media operation. China has been ramping up its coercive campaigns targeting Taiwan since its new president Lai Ching-te was elected. China launched military drills, called “Joint Sword-2024A,” three days after Lai gave his inaugural address, warning that the exercises were meant to serve as “strong punishment for the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces and a stern warning against interference and provocation by external forces.”

While U.S. officials have grown concerned that China may be preparing to be able to invade Taiwan by 2027, some harbor the belief that a military option is not inevitable. Invading Taiwan would not result in a swift victory for either China or the United States, if it intervenes, according to the results of a war-game executed by experts at the Center for a New American Security. And taking Taiwan by force would be incredibly difficult , with mountains, jungles, and rugged terrain, military planners note.

Complicating matters would be China’s calculus over whether to limit its operations to Taiwan or launch preemptive strikes against U.S. and allied targets. It could opt to make way for its military operation, while running the risk of expanding and prolonging the conflict.

Rather than risk all that, China can lean on grey zone operations, with everything from cyberattacks to pressure campaigns to influence operations.

China has for years been working on sweeping efforts that appear aimed at softening independence stances in Taiwan. Just last year, China unveiled a plan to better integrate Taiwan with Fujian , a coastal province, as part of a “blueprint” on how China could “completely reunify” Taiwan with China. Rather than rely on military force, Beijing’s plan focused on enhancing economic and social ties between the two.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affair Council lambasted the plan as “totally wishful thinking” at the time. Polling indicates that plans like it have done little to sway Taiwanese audiences towards unification with China.

Indeed, in recent days, Taiwanese lawmakers’ negative reactions to China’s apparent effort to weasel its way into Taiwanese broadcasting have been piling up. Ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Wang Ting-yu has suggested that Taiwan ban Xinhua journalists in Taiwan.

“The government should ban Xinhua News Agency from posting people to Taiwan,” Wang said, according to Radio Free Asia. “Otherwise, if they do something wrong and have to go running back [to China], they can just send someone to replace them, which is a legal loophole.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.