CHINA SOUGHT TO INFLUENCE 2022 U.S. ELECTIONS
China has been exploiting divisions in American society by stoking tensions over issues such as abortion and gun control, and portraying U.S. democracy as "chaotic, ineffective, and unrepresentative." According to a 21-page assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in 2022 China "tried to influence a handful of midterm races involving members of both U.S. political parties." Chinese officials were bolder in 2022 because they were "under less scrutiny during the midterms and because they did not expect the current [U.S.] administration to retaliate as severely as they feared in 2020." The assessment, a classified version of which was delivered to Congress, identified "China's greater willingness to conduct election influence activities than in past cycles." (CBS, December 19, 2023)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: A similar assessment released after the 2020 election found that, judging the risks of being caught to be too great, China "considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election."]
TAIWAN COLONEL OFFERED $15M TO DEFECT ON MILITARY HELICOPTER
Chinese spies offered a Taiwanese Army lieutenant colonel $15 million to defect to China aboard a Boeing CH-47 Chinook military helicopter by landing on a PLA Navy warship near the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan High Prosecutor's Office arrested the man, surnamed Hsieh, as well as his collaborators, after he met with Chinese intelligence officers in Bangkok, Thailand. The Chinese agents promised to help Hseih's wife and children obtain Thai visas, and said that once war broke out in the Taiwan Strait his family would be evacuated from Taiwan and he would be given a monthly salary of $27,000. (Taiwan News, December 11, 2023)
CHINA CURBS THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY
China is working on new rules that would limit how much money and time people can spend on video gaming. The draft legislation would ban "forbidden online game content that endangers national security or harms national reputation and interests." Online games cannot reward daily logins or entice people to play and spend excessively, said the National Press and Publication Administration. The world's largest gaming market will also introduce pop-ups warning users of their "irrational" playing behavior. Tencent Games' vice president, Vigo Zhang, said the company would strictly implement the new regulatory requirements, and his company's share price fell 12.4%. Shares in rival NetEase, which has not commented yet on the new rules, were down more than 24%. (BBC, December 22, 2023)
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Beijing first moved against the gaming sector in 2021, ruling that online gamers under the age of 18 would only be allowed to play for an hour on Fridays, weekends and holidays. This draft legislation, however, goes much further.]
CHINA FLOODS TAIWAN WITH DISINFORMATION AHEAD OF ELECTION
China is trying to use disinformation to boost the chances of pro-Beijing opposition candidates in Taiwan's upcoming election. Examples include a fake speech attributed to an official from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, misrepresentation of polling results, and fraudulent food safety reports. In July, a Beijing-friendly newspaper falsely claimed that Washington had ordered Taipei to develop biological weapons for use against the PLA. "This goes beyond just spreading disinformation. Beijing seems to be practicing how it could use disinformation to create an excuse for military action and target Taiwan using a justification that the U.S. was about to start a war against China," one Taiwanese security official said. (CNN, December 16, 2023)
FLORIDA'S NEW LAW BLOCKS CHINESE STUDENTS FROM ACADEMIC LABS
A new Florida law prohibits the state’s 12 public colleges and universities from taking money from or working with Chinese entities, and prevents faculty at these educational institutions from hiring Chinese graduate students and postdocs. To be hired, Chinese students would have to be granted a waiver, but the state is still writing rules to implement the statute. About 300 faculty at the University of Florida signed a petition to the university president calling for clarification. "We urgently request a timely decision that allows us to recruit top international graduate students with an assistantship, irrespective of their nationality. Failure to act swiftly may result in the loss of exceptional students to other universities, and the damage will be irreversible," the petition read. (Science, December 12, 2023)
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