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China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

economist.com

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Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#71

Post by seanmcdirmid »

blackoil wrote: post #37
SanjayMehta wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bizarre idea. China wants Taiwan because they consider it a renegade province. I doubt they care about one fab.

Yeah. China has its stance consistently since 1940s, it is not that they woke up about Taiwan in 2010. It is more of a scorched earth plan. There isn't much of interest to US beyond TSMC. As long as it doesn't fall in hand of China, rest it will be OK to loose.

It would only have been since 1949, and they gave up their best chance to retake Taiwan (while the Americans weren’t interested) to meddle in Korea instead.

The Americans don’t really care that much about TSMC. Its fabs are highly dependent on parts, material, etc from more secured countries, which is by design, or they would have never allowed semiconductor industries to be setup in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. They have much of the process locked up and a chip only gets made via free trade from multiple countries (with a lot of fate keeping by key allies, like the Dutch).

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#72

Post by dundarious »

arp242 wrote: post #64
perihelions wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN discussion isn't related to a "misleading video posted on Douyin"; it's based on accurate news reporting about an academic foreign policy paper (which doesn't speak for US foreign policy). https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/05/taiwan_should_destory... ( "US Army journal's top paper from 2021 says Taiwan should destroy TSMC if China invades" ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31012442 ( "Taiwan should dest…

> an academic foreign policy paper (which doesn't speak for the US foreign policy). From two guys who seem to have no real influence. It's basically little more than a blog post. A lot of people say a lot of stuff. Sometimes that's pretty stupid. Sometimes even worse. That's kind of how it works in a free society. The most effective lie is the one with a kernel of truth.

Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.) is in government. And if a Chinese military journal said something, the US press would have no qualms saying "Chinese military thinks/wants X". It's on the same level of "disinformation" as 99% of journalism, which is to say, it contains minor sensationalism but has meaningful factual basis, and with minor additional qualifiers, has a reasonable factual basis.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#73

Post by vuln »

stale2002 wrote: post #26
goodbyesf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Who cares? Presumable the hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions of people in China who are going to die if they invade Taiwan, due to all the weapons that the US gives Taiwan and will continue to give them to defend themselves. And possibly even more that that if and when either the USA or surrounding Pacific Asia countries get directly involved against China. Those US bases aren't there for show. Instead,…

> due to all the weapons that the US gives Taiwan and will continue to give them to defend themselves.

Sorry, we gave all those to Ukraine.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#74

Post by seanmcdirmid »

zoom6628 wrote: post #50
maverick2007 wrote: post #5

> America had asked Taiwan to manufacture biological weapons at a lab run by the island’s defence ministry, the report claimed. This reminds me a lot of the (presumably Russian disinformation) story that flitted around American conservative spheres early in the Ukraine war saying that the US gov was setting up bio weapon labs at the border with Russia and that's why the Russian invasion was justified. Funny how the e…

The volume of Chinese disinformation inside China about Ukraine from Feb 2022 thru dec 2022 was amazing. Bio weapons, assassination plots, secret missiles - pick your favourite conspiracy theory and it was out there. The CCP UnitedFront don't seem to realise the damage they are doing to their own political image. And for fellow HN readers no matter what you read about China always bear in mind that politics comes fir…

The CCP doesn’t really care what people outside China think about it. It comes off as crass because they plays well at home, and they are immune to public opinion anywhere else.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#75

Post by dralley »

wdutch wrote: post #34
goodbyesf wrote: post #7

[flagged]

> Is it not entirely a chinese matter? Well, no. It also includes Taiwan.

On this note - without implying anything about OPs personal politics - it's absolutely crazy to me how quickly certain varieties of leftists bought into the imperial notion that major powers are entitled to spheres of influence within which they can enforce their will on smaller neighbors regardless of what those neighbors want for themselves.

Because that's basically how a lot of arguments about NATO, Ukraine, Taiwan etc tend to go. People like Chomsky end up using the same arguments that were used to justify heinous actions in the 70s and 80s, just with the "sides" flipped.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#76

Post by threeseed »

vuln wrote: post #63
jamesaurichs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's going to be a lot of Russian and Chinese interference in American politics in 2024 for sure

We can repeat the 2020 election the “most safe and secure” election ever. Funny how Russia and China sat that one out huh? Guess they’d let the other team win one.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that if Russia/China get involved they are guaranteed to decide the outcome of the election. That is absolutely not the case.

There are hundreds of factors that will ultimately decide who wins on the day.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#77

Post by autoexec »

vuln wrote: post #63
jamesaurichs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's going to be a lot of Russian and Chinese interference in American politics in 2024 for sure

We can repeat the 2020 election the “most safe and secure” election ever. Funny how Russia and China sat that one out huh? Guess they’d let the other team win one.

Why do you think they didn't try to interfere in the 2020 election?

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#78

Post by unclebucknasty »

vuln wrote: post #63
jamesaurichs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's going to be a lot of Russian and Chinese interference in American politics in 2024 for sure

We can repeat the 2020 election the “most safe and secure” election ever. Funny how Russia and China sat that one out huh? Guess they’d let the other team win one.

The safe and secure claim was largely around the conduct of the election itself, whereas US adversaries largely deployed disinfo and propaganda tactics to interfere in the election.

So, not sure they sat it out as much as the U.S. was a little better prepared. For instance, social media platforms did a better job of not being completely owned as fire hoses for propaganda and disinfo.

Of course, some then complained that this constituted "censorship" by the platforms.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#79

Post by threeseed »

jamesaurichs wrote: post #9
maverick2007 wrote: post #5

> America had asked Taiwan to manufacture biological weapons at a lab run by the island’s defence ministry, the report claimed. This reminds me a lot of the (presumably Russian disinformation) story that flitted around American conservative spheres early in the Ukraine war saying that the US gov was setting up bio weapon labs at the border with Russia and that's why the Russian invasion was justified. Funny how the e…

There's going to be a lot of Russian and Chinese interference in American politics in 2024 for sure

The worst part is that X/Twitter is deliberately not trying to help this cycle.

They pulled out of the EU Code of Practice around disinformation back in May and they have been warned as recently as yesterday that the platform was the worst of all of the social networks at allowing Russian disinformation.

And I am sure everyone who used it has seen the massive uptick in bots and other coordinated activity.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#80

Post by threeseed »

vuln wrote: post #60
maverick2007 wrote: post #5

> America had asked Taiwan to manufacture biological weapons at a lab run by the island’s defence ministry, the report claimed. This reminds me a lot of the (presumably Russian disinformation) story that flitted around American conservative spheres early in the Ukraine war saying that the US gov was setting up bio weapon labs at the border with Russia and that's why the Russian invasion was justified. Funny how the e…

Ukraine has bio labs, funded by the US and operated by Ukraine. There is also proof and testimony that the US funded the Wuhan lab also. “They're looking at pathogens that infect humans and animals with an emphasis on those that are endemic to Ukraine, Anthrax, tularemia, tuberculosis, botulism, classic swine fever, Crimean hemorrhagic fever, avian flu, those types of things.” Just like Wuhan was just checking out so…

Every country has bio labs.

The insinuation which your sources refute is that they are bio-weapon labs.

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