* Chinese state media amplify Taiwan opposition voices to

undermine DPP government, IORG data show

* Campaign aims in part to undercut Taiwan's push to lift

defense spending, Taiwan officials say

* Taiwan counters with media-literacy efforts, DPP

stresses strength over concessions to China

* China's Taiwan Affairs Office didn't respond to

questions about information warfare

By James Pomfret and Yimou Lee

TAIPEI, April 17 (Reuters) - As Chinese warships and

fighter jets staged massive drills around Taiwan in December, a

parallel action was unfolding on smartphone screens.

On Douyin, China's version of TikTok, a news outlet run by

the Chinese Communist Party posted a 51-second video of Taiwan

opposition leader Cheng Li-wun accusing President Lai Ching-te

of inviting Chinese aggression. Lai, Cheng said, was "dragging

all 23 million of us" in Taiwan into a "dead end, a road to

death" by pursuing independence. The clip quickly surfaced on

Facebook, YouTube and other platforms popular in Taiwan.

Chinese state media outlets are increasingly amplifying

Taiwanese critics of the island's ruling Democratic Progressive

Party (DPP), including influencers and politicians linked to the

opposition Kuomintang (KMT), according to five Taiwanese

security officials and data from Taipei-based research group

IORG that was shared with Reuters.

China imports the public statements of leading KMT and other

opposition figures that are critical of the Taiwan government

and pumps them out in a torrent of anti-DPP messaging in Chinese

state media and on social media platforms in China, according to

the data and sources. Those clips are then reshared and often

repackaged for consumption on platforms popular in Taiwan,

including Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, as well as on Douyin,

sometimes embellished or presented in ways that obscure China's

hand.

While China has in the past employed Taiwanese figures in

its propaganda, it has turbocharged this information-warfare

tactic, the Taiwan security officials said: Familiar voices and

accents can sound more credible.

The goal is to discredit a government Beijing accuses of seeking

independence, the officials said. And, with the DPP seeking $40

billion in extra defense outlays, the campaign also appears

aimed at convincing Taiwanese that China's military power is so

overwhelming that it is futile for Taiwan to spend heavily on

more American weapons, according to IORG and three of the

security officials.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office and defense ministry didn't

respond to requests for comment about Beijing's information

warfare.

Taiwan's defense ministry told Reuters it is countering a

massive increase in Chinese "cognitive warfare" by strengthening

the armed forces' media-literacy skills and psychological

resilience. President Lai's office added that cross-strait peace

must be "built on strength, not on concessions to authoritarian

pressure."

Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, which are blocked in China,

didn't respond to questions about Chinese information warfare.

Douyin also didn't respond to a request for comment.

China considers Taiwan part of its territory and hasn't

ruled out using military force to seize it. Taiwan's government

rejects China's sovereignty claim, saying it is already an

independent country called the Republic of China, its formal

name. Beijing refuses ​to speak with the DPP administration, and

calls Lai a "separatist."

While Chinese preparations for military action against Taiwan

continue, the information warfare is part of Beijing's strategy

of wearing down Taiwan without resorting to force. In this

regard, Taiwan's opposition KMT provides a valuable opening for

China: The party has moved to seek closer ties with Beijing in a

bid to head off what it says is a crisis made worse by the DPP

government's provocation of China.

Cheng, the KMT leader, met Chinese President Xi Jinping this

month in Beijing, where Xi told her the KMT and the Communist

Party must "consolidate political mutual trust" and "join hands

to create a bright future of the motherland's reunification."

In a statement to Reuters, the KMT said Cheng's visit to

Beijing fulfilled a campaign pledge and continued a

long-established tradition of top-level meetings between the KMT

and the Communist Party. The two parties have many differences,

but both believe disagreements should be resolved through

dialogue, it added.

SOCIAL MEDIA BATTLEGROUND

Data provided to Reuters by IORG, also known as the Taiwan

Information Environment Research Center, shows the mechanics of

the Chinese campaign. The non-partisan group of social

scientists and data analysts is funded in part by the U.S. and

European governments, and academic institutions in Taiwan.

Some 560,000 videos were posted on Douyin by 1,076 accounts

run by official Communist Party media outlets in the fourth

quarter of 2025. About 18,000 videos discussed Taiwan. IORG used

facial-recognition technology to identify 57 Taiwanese figures

in 2,730 clips, with results verified by IORG researchers and

reviewed by Reuters.

The number of videos featuring Taiwanese voices more than

doubled from a year earlier during October and November, and

monthly airtime jumped 164% to 369 minutes.

Strikingly, of the top 25 Taiwanese figures in the Chinese

videos, 13 are affiliated with the KMT, from current lawmakers

and party representatives to former officials under past KMT-led

governments. Two others are senior officials in a small party

that supports unification with China, while 10 are influencers

known for criticizing the governing DPP.

Cheng, the KMT leader, was the top-ranked Taiwanese figure in

the Chinese clips, featuring in 460 videos across 68 Douyin

accounts and generating more than five million interactions,

including likes, comments and shares. The videos amplified her

calls for "peace" with China, her criticism of President Lai as

a "pawn" of external forces, and her characterization of the

DPP's stance on Taiwan independence as destructive. Once aired

on Chinese state media and social media platforms, some of the

clips were repackaged and posted on platforms popular in Taiwan.

In its statement, the KMT said Cheng's comments reflected

the mainstream aspirations of the Taiwanese people for peace.

"Even if mainland state media tend to incorporate more Taiwanese

voices, this is based on the diversity of public opinion that

already exists in Taiwan," it added.

Various influencers were also heavily cited by the Chinese

outlets. Among them were Holger Chen Chih-han, a bodybuilder

popular with younger audiences, and five retired senior military

officials known for criticizing the DPP and Taiwan's defenses.

"Happy birthday, motherland," Chen said on a YouTube

livestream in late September, ahead of China's National Day.

Short clips of the broadcast, in which he also said the people

of Taiwan and China were "one family," were later shared by

Chinese state media outlets, including China News Service.

Chen didn't respond to a request for comment.

In one video posted by China News Service, former Taiwan

Army Colonel Lai Yueh-chien claimed Chinese drones had "entered"

Taiwan undetected during military exercises in December. Lai

also suggested that China might conduct a decapitation strike

against "pro-independence leaders" in their sleep. The video

soon appeared on Facebook and YouTube.

The assertion that Chinese drones had approached Taiwan

first appeared in a video posted on a social media account run

by China's military, according to IORG. Taiwan's defense

ministry denied the drone claim.

China News Service didn't respond to Reuters questions. Lai

Yueh-chien declined to comment about his presence in Chinese

state media.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council told Reuters the

government hoped the retired military officers "will be mindful

of public perception" and shouldn't echo Beijing's rhetoric.

Moreover, it added, they "must not forget the oath they once

swore to be loyal" to Taiwan.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TARGETING

Support in Taiwan for maintaining the status quo indefinitely

has risen eight points to 33.5% since 2020, while support for

maintaining the status quo but moving toward independence has

declined almost four points to 21.9%, according to a

long-running annual survey series released in January by the

Election Study Center at Taiwan's National Chengchi University.

The combined proportion who want unification with China as soon

as possible or wish to maintain the status quo but move toward

unification has been relatively stable at around 7%.

It's unclear whether the intensification of China's

information warfare is having an impact. There has been no

discernible shift in Taiwanese attitudes toward independence or

unification since 2024, according to the annual survey data.

This timeframe roughly coincides with the period of intensified

information warfare examined by IORG. The DPP, China's principal

political antagonist in Taiwan, lost its parliamentary majority

in 2024 but has won the last three presidential elections.

Still, the barrage of messaging "creates an environment in

which China can more easily win support, because its strategy

really is to lower morale, instill a sense of psychological

despair, convince people they have no future in being autonomous

and their best option is to join up with China," said Bonnie

Glaser, head of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall

Fund of the United States, a think tank that receives funding

from U.S. and European governments and companies including tech

and defense firms.

Taiwan's intelligence officials recorded over 45,000 sets of

inauthentic social-media accounts and 2.3 million pieces of

disinformation on China-Taiwan issues last year, a January

report by Taiwan's National Security Bureau said. It described

the goals of Beijing's information warfare: to exacerbate

divisions within Taiwan; weaken Taiwanese people's will to

resist; and win support for China's stance.

"They want you to doubt the military and doubt Taiwan, to

make you feel that no one will come to help you if war breaks

out," one Taiwanese security official said of China's state

media.

A civil-defense handbook that Taiwan's government issued to

households last year went so far as to state pre-emptively that

amid heightened tensions with China, any claims of Taiwan's

surrender must be considered false - a recognition that the

information battle is intensifying, even if no shots have been

fired.

(Reporting by James Pomfret in Taipei and Hong Kong and Yimou

Lee in Taipei. Editing by David Crawshaw.)