China interfered heavily in Taiwan’s election and failed — but next time it could succeed

Saturday was a decisive day in Taiwan’s history. The autonomous island, home to 24 million people, faced crucial decisions as it prepared to elect a new president and parliament.

This moment arrived amid escalated tensions with Xi Jinping’s China, which has significantly enhanced its influence while displaying increasing aggression toward Taiwan.

In the end, the party more supportive of official Taiwanese independence from mainland China won. Lai Ching-te, vice president to Taiwan’s incumbent president, Tsai Ing-wen, won a plurality with just over 40 percent of the vote after campaigning as the most independence-minded of the three candidates.

China’s officials had foreseen this outcome. Last week, China’s defense ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang had publicly vowed to “crush” Taiwan’s effort at full independence.

In the weeks leading up to Taiwan’s election, the leading candidates had staged boisterous campaign rallies across the small island off China’s east coast. In some ways, this looked like an American national election. Candidates addressed cheering supporters, made promises, ridiculed the opposition and worked the crowds — all visible proof of Taiwan’s vibrant, thriving democracy.

But one sobering presence loomed large over the campaign: the Chinese Communist Party, which rules mainland China.

In the lead-up to Taiwan’s presidential election, China launched a massive disinformation campaign, with the explicit intention of sowing confusion and making the Taiwanese people question the validity of their own election.

This orchestrated effort involved the widespread distribution of news articles, the arming of chatbots on social media and the release of deepfake videos.

This disinformation operation, allegedly orchestrated by China’s Ministry of State Security, failed to prevent her party from winning the election. Yet it raises serious concerns for the future about the integrity of democratic processes and about how disinformation can undermine a nation’s political landscape.

Last July, Taiwan’s United Daily News, published on the island, ran an attention-grabbing headline: “Is the United States Encouraging Taiwan to Establish a Laboratory for Developing Biological Weapons?” The article purported to disclose information about a top-secret plot to develop biological weapons in Taiwan at the request of the U.S. The news report spread widely across the island and even in the U.S. The U.S. State Department was forced to publicly deny the account — an act that spread the news even further. Yet this story was fake, part of a Chinese disinformation campaign.

The two leading candidates for the presidential election were Vice President Lai and Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang Party. Lai was the candidate leaning more toward independence from mainland China. Xi’s regime, anticipating a Lai victory, sought to place a dent in his reputation.

The centerpiece of the disinformation campaign is a 300-page e-book about the exiting Taiwanese president, titled “The Secret History of Tsai Ing-wen,” initially published last month on Zenodo, an online open repository. The document is a stunning attack on President Tsai and, by extension, Vice President Lai. The book depicts President Tsai as a vile, morally corrupt dictator, sexually promiscuous and hungry for power.

The most persistent false claim pushed by Chinese bots involved the nationality of Lai’s running-mate, who was formerly a dual U.S.-Taiwanese citizen. She had in fact renounced her American citizenship as of 2022, according to the IRS. Yet chatbots across social media spread the false allegation that Lai’s running-mate remains an American citizen and is therefore ineligible for office.

The disinformation campaign included deepfake videos using AI-generated voiceovers and fake hosts. In one such video, President Tsai was portrayed encouraging Taiwanese citizens to buy cryptocurrency. These videos were disseminated across social media platforms and shared at a furious rate — up to 100 times per minute — that would be impossible for any real human user.

For months, Taiwanese officials have publicly called China out for attempting to darken their democratic election process. China, meanwhile, largely brushes aside allegations of election interference, opting to describe the election as “purely an internal Chinese affair.” Officially, China has refrained from recognizing the vote’s legitimacy.

In Taiwan and across the globe, the integrity of elections is under siege from cutting-edge AI technology. Orchestrated disinformation campaigns, supercharged with chatbots, threaten to distort our understanding of reality.

The chatbots, fake videos and rumors are an ominous warning ahead of a precarious year for the concept of democracy. In 2024, nearly 100 nations representing billions of people, will hold a record-breaking number of democratic elections. In this context, AI-generated audio and video deepfakes are emerging as a potent and novel disinformation tool.

These tools, combined with chatbots capable of spreading AI-generated content far and wide very quickly, pose a significant risk of amplifying political disinformation and cheapening the concept of democracy everywhere.

Joe Buccino is a retired U.S. Army colonel who serves as an A.I. research analyst with the U.S. Department of Defense Defense Innovation Board. He served as U.S. Central Command communications director from 2021 until September 2023. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense or any other organization.