A Conversation on China’s Global Influence With the Global Taiwan Institute

Of all the places in the world where China’s growing efforts to wield influence inside other countries’ politics and societies have been felt, Taiwan is probably number one. Indeed, even before Beijing ramped up its influence activities in the past decade, it had been wielding extensive influence inside Taiwan, as well as several Southeast Asian states. In many ways, in fact, Taiwan and several Southeast Asian states were a kind of testing ground for the tactics—gaining control of local Chinese-language media, trying to use disinformation on local social media, attempting soft power efforts via cultural and visit diplomacy, and other strategies—that China is now trying to utilize across Asia and in most other parts of the world.

For more on China’s global influence tactics, and the role China’s targeting of Taiwan has played in them, see my conversation with the Global Taiwan Institute, moderated by GTI executive director Russell Hsiao.