Seated just 180 kilometers from the Chinese coast, Taiwan’s western neighbor has always had an enormous impact on politics and life in the island nation, whether through waxing and waning economic relations, military crises and threats, or continued influence on both domestic and international Taiwanese politics. At the time of writing, the situation in the Indo-Pacific, and in particular the Taiwan Strait, has become increasingly polarized and tense, moving firmly in the direction of an eventual war over Taiwan, with no sign of reversal or warming cross-strait relations.
As is the case on both sides of the Strait, internal politics are the driving force behind foreign policy, meaning that Taiwanese, Chinese, and American domestic politics must be taken into consideration when assessing the international situation. In democratic Taiwan, where power is passed between the Taiwanese nationalist, pro-independence leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and the Kuomintang (KMT), who favor the status quo and maintaining closer relations with the PRC, the America-discrediting narrative (疑美論) has become a key point in the political battleground. A long-discussed, but often dismissed topic, the America-discrediting narrative has now taken center stage when discussing trilateral relations.
The basic premise of the narrative is that the United States is exploiting Taiwan’s economy, security, and population in order to serve its own interests, and will quickly abandon Taiwan when it is the most convenient option. Yet, there is little research investigating the origins of the America-discrediting narrative and its associated effects.
Where does the narrative come from? Does it hold enough sway to influence Taiwanese democracy—and if so, in which ways? And critically, how does the America-discrediting narrative influence the Taiwanese people’s views on the PRC and/or unification? These questions are a critical component to properly understanding the security situation in the Taiwan Strait and Indo-Pacific and can help steer regional foreign policy in a cooler, more tenable direction.
The America-discrediting narrative was chosen for further research in this paper due to the astonishing dearth of research and writing on the topic in English thus far. While there is extensive writing on Chinese information warfare, election interference in Taiwan, and the influence of global geopolitics in domestic Taiwanese discourse, there is no thread connecting the topics to each other, or even mentioning the ‘America-discrediting narrative’.
This author first heard the term from a Taiwanese coworker while serving as an intern for the Democratic Progressive Party and could not even find a clear English definition—let alone research—of the phenomenon on multiple popular internet search engines. While Chinese language sources discussing this topic exist, the majority carry a strong DPP bias, and are not academic in nature, consisting of blogs, news articles, and statements from politicians—all of which treat the America-discrediting narrative as common knowledge, and do not ask ‘where’ or why’ it exists. Therefore, this paper aims to advance Western understanding of this geopolitically critical topic and delve deeper into the murky background of the narrative.
For this paper, I have analyzed digital news media (text and video) in both English and Chinese concerning both ‘the America-discrediting narrative’ and ‘疑美論’ and have also focused on English language academic writing on Chinese information warfare methods and election interference. Furthermore, my research includes adjacent topics, such as statistics measuring the amount of influence exerted on Taiwan by China, and how foreign interference in different circumstances can affect domestic reactions.
While it is likely that a vast amount of information regarding the America-discrediting narrative exists on Chinese and Taiwanese social media, the granularity of such information and the barriers to accessing it push such research firmly outside the scope of this project. Nevertheless, I believe a compelling argument can be made based on the research completed and is confident that further research can advance and strengthen the claims made in this paper. Translations in this paper either come from the English language source where the quote was pulled from, or—in the case of quotes pulled directly from Chinese language sources—my own translation.
To begin with, in order to form a more complete picture of the America-discrediting narrative, we must delve into its background and origin, including several variants of the narrative which have appeared over time. First and foremost, China’s history of information warfare operations against Taiwan makes a strong case for the America-discrediting narrative at least partially originating from within the PRC. DPP lawmakers have long argued this position, claiming that pan-Blue opponents discussing the America-discrediting narrative are simply echoing the same rhetoric China uses for cognitive warfare.
According to the Stanford Internet Observatory, the CCP over the past century has closely studied the art of combing covert and overt propaganda, and actively leverages the freedom of speech found in its democratic targets in order to project influence and achieve its goals. This influence takes many forms, and often has a veneer of credibility—or at the very least plausible deniability—on China’s part.
For example, in the run up to the Taiwanese 2020 Presidential Election, a scandal came to light in which a YouTube channel purported to belong to a Taiwanese citizen accused Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen of ‘selling’ Taiwan to the U.S. and allies in the region such as Japan. However, there were slight typos in the traditional Chinese subtitles, and the channel owner was later shown to be a Chinese state media reporter. Furthermore, according to another study into Chinese disinformation, “false news stories targeting the DPP tend to accuse it of betraying Taiwan to governments other than Beijing”.
The very nature of disinformation makes it hard to pinpoint where any one piece of information came from, yet this claim tracks with statements made by a multitude of experts and DPP politicians who repeatedly claim that is a cognitive warfare method employed by China against Taiwan. On a related note, PRC propaganda agencies’ continued push of anti-American rhetoric has made war seem inevitable, and that the US is “keen on instigating a military conflict with Taiwan” with the goal of eliminating China as a strategic competitor. These examples show that America-discrediting narrative has and continues to be pushed from the CCP apparatus both into Chinese politics, and into domestic Taiwanese discourse.
Next, we will look at the scale of Chinese cognitive warfare operations. In a bombshell revelation two months before the 2020 election—related to suspicious online behavior during the 2018 local elections—a purported Chinese spy under the name Wang “William” Liqiang claimed to have created over 200 thousand fake social media accounts to influence Taiwanese voters, paid over USD$200 million to Taiwanese media outlets to promote KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu, and that over twenty fake internet companies based in HK were used to attack the DPP during the campaigning season. Wang’s revelations make clear the massive scale of Chinese information warfare in Taiwan, something which is particularly present in traditional Taiwanese news media.
In addition to the USD$200 million quoted by Wang as being spent to promote KMT mayoral candidate Han Kuo-yu, Taiwanese-owned Want Want China Times Media Group has reportedly received upwards of USD$500 million in subsidies from the CCP. Journalists working within the group claim editors routinely took instructions from the PRC’s Taiwan Affairs Office, and even went so far as sending certain articles to the TAO for greenlighting before publication.
According to the China Index 2022, China’s influence in Taiwanese media sits at 81%, and its influence in Taiwanese society is 77.3%, compared with global averages of 30.1% and 23.6%, respectively. It is clear from these examples that China has the motivation and wherewithal to exert influence Taiwanese discourse, and from the aforementioned research, has pushed the America-discrediting narrative on at least several occasions in the past. It is therefore a safe and logical conclusion that the PRC has leveraged its extreme influence in Taiwanese media and public discourse to promote the America-discrediting narrative, and that some of the earliest forms of the narrative can trace their origins to the CPP.
Despite the fact that the America-discrediting narrative was originally born out of the PRC, one cannot however dismiss it entirely as CPP information warfare. A substantial portion of Taiwanese—most definitely with no idea of the narrative’s origins—have real, deeply-held doubts and suspicions of the United States in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. KMT politicians will on occasion take PRC talking points, alter them slightly, then use them to suit their own interests in Taiwanese politics, such as attacking the ruling DPP-government. For example, KMT legislator Wu Sz-huai, who said that “today’s Ukraine is absolutely not tomorrow’s Taiwan; today’s Russia is also not tomorrow’s China; [but] ‘today’s United States, is still tomorrow’s United States’”.
Furthermore, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 fueled renewed discussion in Taiwan of American commitment to the island, and led to the emergence of domestic, Taiwanese perspectives on the America-discrediting narrative. KMT legislator and media personality Jaw Shaw-kong used the Afghanistan withdrawal to “cast doubt on the likelihood of the U.S. defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion,” suggesting that the US would abandon Taiwan like it did Afghanistan. Jaw also said that Taiwan would have to “choose between peace and war” to avoid becoming another Afghanistan.
This ‘abandonment’ clause in particular is a critical divergence from the PRC version of the narrative, which for the most part only accuses the DPP and United States of ‘using’ Taiwan and ‘selling’ it to the west, as discussed previously. What Jaw’s comments show is a new, Taiwanese facet to the discussion, and one of the main talking points associated with the narrative today.
Having ingrained itself deeply into Taiwan’s domestic political discourse, there are multiple ways in which the America-discrediting narrative influences the Taiwanese people and their politics. To begin with, compared with the era ushered in after the Sunflower Revolution, confidence in the United States has trended downwards. According to a survey conducted in February 2023, 46.5% of Taiwanese believe America will not come to Taiwan’s aid if China invades, compared to 42.8% who do. These are stark figures which show the depth to which the America-discrediting narrative and doubt of the US has ingrained itself in Taiwan, especially considering the historical precedents in Taiwan’s relationship with the US and China.
What is even more interesting, however, is comparing the 2023 survey results with those from 2022. In March 2022, a shocking 55.9% of Taiwanese believed the US would not help defend Taiwan, and 34.5% did. This was an all-time low of confidence in the United States. Yet, by October of the same year, polls had flipped, with over 65% of respondents saying they believed the US would defend Taiwan.
NTNU East Asia Studies professor Fan Shih-ping attributes this to the US refusing to send troops to Ukraine, implying that the US does not rush headlong into direct military conflict without careful consideration. Without a doubt, PLA brinkmanship in the Taiwan Strait in the wake of Speaker Pelosi’s visit in August 2022 also influenced Taiwanese risk perceptions. Nevertheless—and despite the sudden spike of confidence in the US—the quick return to skepticism highlights the staying power of the America-discrediting narrative, even if external factors may temporarily trump such concerns.
Another fascinating phenomenon associated with the America-discrediting narrative has been the increasing push for ‘equidistance’ between the U.S. and China. In March of this year, several prominent Taiwanese university scholars released an anti-war statement “for peace, against war, for climate, and for autonomy,” while also striving for “friendly and equidistant relations between great powers”. While such talk is still downplayed and disparaged by Green-leaning scholars and politicians, this push for equidistance does not necessarily carry anti-American undertones, which further distinguishes it from PRC and KMT narratives.
In one example, a Taiwanese university student blogger asserts that expressing doubt towards America is not fundamentally ‘anti-America’, and certainly not anti-democratic—rather, while two countries may share interests, they will not fully overlap, and to fully align with one country is to bind one’s destiny to it. The blogger also mentions a recent interview with AIT director Sandra Oudkirk, where Oudkirk says:
“part of freedom of speech is [that] we protect skepticism. If someone says ‘I doubt you’ it’s then my job to rebut those doubts or assure the person they shouldn’t need to doubt me, rather than to say this is some sort of disinformation”.
Here, we see the culmination of the ‘Taiwanization’ of the America-discrediting narrative. Even in pro-independence, Taiwanese nationalist discourse, there now exists ample space to question US influence and great power politics, without immediately being seen as selling out to PRC unification. The influence this shift could have on Taiwanese politics is incredibly significant. In recent times, Taiwanese national elections have been framed as a choice between closer ties with China, or an emphasis on Taiwanese nationalism and closer ties with the West. Now, there is a third path in which Taiwanese can assert their independence and democratic aspirations, without necessarily aligning further with the U.S. and Western countries.
Now, the question must be asked: if the America-discrediting narrative has opened up space to doubt the US and discuss the pros and cons of the Taiwan-US relationship, then how has the narrative affected Taiwanese perspectives on the PRC? Interestingly, it does not appear that the America-discrediting narrative has any significant correlation with ‘softening’ views on the CCP or strengthening ties with the PRC but has on occasions ostracized the KMT and actually increased support for the DPP and Taiwanese nationalism.
The essence of the American-discrediting narrative is the question of foreign intervention in Taiwanese politics. This intervention comes in many forms: Chinese military and political threats, American edicts and promises regarding Taiwan, and US and Chinese actions abroad. It is not necessarily the degree to which such intervention takes place, or what the motives behind it is, but rather the way in which intervention in Taiwanese politics is carried out.
An extremely relevant case study comes from research done into election interference in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. In the buildup to the election, Russia directly conducted subversive, covert influence operations in order to influence the electorate and pave the way for their preferred candidate. On the other side, the West indirectly interfered through the use of IOs, NGOs, and investment in Ukrainian organizations in order to strengthen Ukrainian democratic institutions.
However, due to the very public and direct nature of announcing support for democracy and sending election observers to Ukraine, the ‘salience’—as Shulman puts it—of the interference is much more pronounced. This leads to so-called ‘backlash’ against Western interference in Ukraine, even though the West had far less direct involvement in the election than Russia.
With Shulman and Bloom’s ‘backlash hypothesis’ in mind, the America-discrediting narrative takes on a new light in regard to China. When the narrative is employed to spread anti-US or anti-DPP rumors, it may actually have the opposite effect, making Taiwanese citizens—regardless of party affiliation—harden their views on China and/or those spreading the rumor.
According to an experiment in which Taiwanese were shown a provocative clip attacking a DPP politician, which was then rebutted and revealed to be fake news, “the rumour and rebuttal worsened participants’ attitudes towards the mainland” even when China was never explicitly mentioned. This shows that—unlike covert Russian interference in Ukraine, which went largely unnoticed by the voting public—disinformation and influence operations in Taiwan are by default blamed on China, regardless of whether or not this is the case. Critically, it was KMT supporters who exhibited the greatest backlash to fake news, showing that they “put ‘nation’ before ‘party’ with respect to fake news”.
The conclusions that can be drawn from these findings are twofold: spreading disinformation and rumors through the America-discrediting narrative may only create backlash against the messengers, but at the same time the narrative has established itself as a real and ever-evolving part of Taiwanese political discussion, which cannot be dismissed as mere propaganda.
Despite its apparent origins in the CCP propaganda apparatus, and its use as a vehicle for political attacks against the DPP by the KMT, the America-discrediting narrative has taken on a life of its own in Taiwan, developing clear distinctions from Chinese and KMT America-skeptical talking points. This means that Taiwanese who engage with the America-discrediting narrative are not necessarily anti-American; rather, they have taken the discussion into their own hands, putting forth demands for equidistance and democratic discussion of Taiwan’s future.
As a result, American diplomats and DPP politicians must tread carefully when discussing the America-discrediting narrative. Proven disinformation should be quickly rebutted and dismissed, which has been proven to harden citizens’ views on China and increase support for Taiwanese independence.
However, blanket-dismissals of any and all skepticism towards the US may incite backlash against perceived intervention into the people’s affairs by American diplomats and DPP party officials, as the America-discrediting narrative now belongs more to the Taiwanese people than KMT politicians or the KMT. The America-discrediting narrative is not something which should inherently be feared.
It is an expression of Taiwanese political freedom, and the Taiwanese people’s search for agency and autonomy in the middle of great power competition. If the agency of the people is recognized, and people’s concerns are engaged with, the America-discrediting narrative can be an opportunity to prove that there is no need to doubt the US, and can strengthen the Taiwanese people’s trust in their allies and in their government.