China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation
With elections looming, China wants Taiwanese voters to think America is their greatest threat
In July one of Taiwan’s top newspapers, United Daily News, published a story based on supposedly leaked minutes from a secret government meeting. America had asked Taiwan to make biological weapons at a lab run by the island’s defence ministry, the report claimed. Taiwanese and American officials denied it. The allegedly leaked minutes, it transpired, were not written in the usual style of Taiwanese government records. They were filled with official-sounding phrases that are used in mainland China, but not in Taiwan.
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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Strait up lies”
Asia September 30th 2023
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From the September 30th 2023 edition
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