Taiwan spy chief briefs lawmakers on six Chinese tactics to sway November 28 elections

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) has identified six major tactics it says the Chinese Communist Party is using to interfere in next month’s nine-in-one local elections, NSB Director-General Tsai Ming-yen told the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee during a briefing on Thursday (Taipei Times).

The six tactics Tsai identified were: providing illegal financial support to specific candidates or political groups; offering low-cost trips to China for targeted individuals; mobilising airlines to offer discounted flights to urge Taiwanese in China to return home to vote; spreading disinformation; operating illegal underground betting markets; and launching cyberattacks to steal election-related intelligence. The discounted airline tickets are expected to be available three weeks before the election, Tsai added (Focus Taiwan/CNA).

The NSB is using artificial intelligence tools to trace the sources of disinformation, and will collect evidence of suspected interference and refer cases to judicial authorities for investigation before the November 28 election, Tsai said.

Taiwan’s Government Service Network was dealing with an average of about 2.58 million cyberintrusion attempts per day as of September, a sharp increase from the figure reported in June, with more than 100 million attempts detected in July alone, the NSB said in a report submitted to the legislature ahead of the briefing. Beijing considers Taiwan its territory and has previously denied interfering in Taiwan’s elections or spreading disinformation (Straits Times/Reuters).