Why Taiwan is Fighting the World's Largest Cyber War | Wang Ting-yu

Every day when we have our breakfast in the morning, we can hear a thunder-like noise, even my son. He will say, oh, PLA come to harass again. We are under this kind of threat for decades. It's our daily life. There are few people who understand what Taiwan is really up against better than Wang Ting-yu, a leader in the Taiwanese Parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. In this episode, Wang breaks down how the CCP uses gray zone tactics and psychological warfare to destabilize Taiwan. They imposed sanctions on me three times. They even sent gangsters to try to harass me and my family. My kid's life was in danger. The full-armed policemen stand in front of my house for a long time. That's a price. When you try to do something right, it's never an easy thing. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Legislator Wang Ting-yu, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. It's my honor to have this opportunity with you. So, you've been repeatedly the chair of the Taiwan's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, and you've watched Beijing apply pressure from many different angles onto your country— military exercises, cognitive warfare, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion. You've talked about all these things. Among these methods, what do you think is the most dangerous? I always use an example of my family. When my son, when he was three years old, now he is 24, every day when we have our breakfast in the morning, we can hear a thunder-like noise, the engine start, the air fighters. Even my son, when he was two, three years old, he would say, oh, PLA come to harass again. We are under this kind of threat for decades. It's our daily life. So, what is the most dangerous threat? Air fighters, destroyers, missiles, drones, those kinds of military, of course, is real and very not disturbing. But however, those disinformation from inside, our psychological defense line is the most important thing. Those autocracies, communists, they're always using fake news, disinformation, those twisted news, polluted by their intention to penetrate your society, make your younger generation through those TikToks, something like that, through some kind of social media, to try to divide your society. Sometimes we just support different party, but through those disinformation, people don't trust your government. That kind of disinformation sabotage this society, divide your society into pieces. I think it's the most dangerous thing caused by China communist. I think probably Americans and Canadians, which is I am Canadian, could learn a lot from this. Democracy, our society is an open society. We value freedom of speech. We value diversification. That's our advantage. But sometimes those autocracies, such like Iran, China, North Korea, they control all the concept, control all the speech, control all the right. So when they try to influence your society, Canada or United States or Taiwan, we are democracy. People's votes going to influence your policy, making process. So try to influence your cognition. Then you can influence your behavior to vote. So they try to influence your awareness. They become racism, become this color people had white people. Democrats had Republican in Taiwan. In the past, it's just you support different party. No big deal. We are friends. We are families. We are neighbors. But now we hate each other. So how to make your people realize what is right? What is wrong? It's the most challenging situation to the democracy society. This is one of the things that at Epoch Times, this is actually our purpose to try to present good, clear information to the people in whatever country we're operating in. Yes. Epoch Times, you provide a clean internet. Information comes from different kinds of sources. It's okay. Sometimes you look from this angle. I look from that angle. We are different. We don't have to agree with each other, but we can work together. We can get along with each other. But what is a twist? Twist information or disinformation? Fact. Or to try to exaggerate the difference. Make difference become dispute. Make dispute become conflict. For example, we mentioned the military coercion, military threat. So we need modern equipment. We need all kinds of major battle tanks. We need a switchblade, a drone, something like that. But if your awareness twisted by those disinformation, you don't trust, you don't loyal to your own country. You worry about the soldier next to you. We are different races. We support different party. I don't have to fight for you. In the past, we fight for our country. We defend our families. But now, those twist information, those disinformation influence your recognition. You think we are from different party. We hate each other. Then even you have the modern equipment, that kind of soldiers cannot defend your country. In school, on the street, if people lose the trust to the system, lose the trust to the democracy, and lose the love to this country, to this land, just because of disinformation, even you have millions of soldiers, you have thousands of policemen, you cannot keep your society stick together. I'm not talking about purify the information. I try to remind the democracy, the modern world, how to educate our next generation, how to help our civilian, our people, to distinguish what is correct. This information provided by CCTV, this information provided by foreign government, and especially it's autocracy government. We need to let our people realize, to distinguish the background of all kinds of information. So what you're talking about is an education for people to be able to have critical thinking and be able to understand the value of different kinds of information. Now technology improved a lot. Deep back, through AI, Yang, I can even create your image, your voice, to speak the most terrible words you cannot imagine, through technology. So how to distinguish it's real, I think it's quite important, not only to our generation, these adults, our next generation. And a lot of fraud happened by this kind of information. A lot of country on the street become a chaos, try to attack each other, because of this kind of information. So if millions people think it's true, but actually it's false, that will be a problem. In Taiwan, during COVID-19, our former prime minister, Su Tseng-chang, he built a SOP, we call three step. First, once this information occurred, those ministry related to this disinformation, you have to response it within 60 minutes. If you slower than 60 minutes, this disinformation spread around, the damage happens. If one disinformation occurred, ministry, administration, need to response it within 60 minutes. Second, the response, try to provide correct information, must be humorous, must be fun. Because our research, our study show, to spread the information, if it's funny, that go faster. So, and the third thing, you need to locate the origin, where the disinformation. The very first moment occurred. Before that, we need to verify, what is disinformation we need to deal with? That's the key. First, this disinformation must be fake. The second one, it must damage public interest. Third, must be intentional. Then we go through this SOP procedure. So during COVID-19, there is a disinformation occurred almost at the same time in Japan, in United States and in Taiwan. They say that the toilet paper runs out in a convenience store. So people watch this information come. They rush in, go to the supermarket, try to grab as much as possible, the toilet paper. It's disinformation, damage public interest. And this information comes from China. So my government do the response. They draw a picture, a photo, showing a cartoon person, and lean on the window, showing the buttocks. Say, how many buttocks you have? You don't need that much toilet paper. And this picture, very funny. So spread three times faster than the disinformation, then ease this tension. Then look at the original information comes from China. So we need to deal with this carefully. We don't want to damage our freedom. So we don't want to restrain people's freedom of speech. So we need to deal with the real disinformation based on and according to law and through these three procedure and a response as fast as possible. And after we ease the tension caused by disinformation, then we try to locate where is from and how to deal with that. So Taiwan, we have an old saying, if you get sick longer enough, you can be a good doctor. So Taiwan, we are the world number one under cyber attack disinformation. We are the number one. Every day, the cyber attack malware around 22.5 million times per hour, every day. So we are under cyber attack severely. So as a survivor, we know how to deal with that. And we are willing to share our experiences and our lessons to our democracy friends. Over the next three to five years, spatial computing is positioned to redefine how we work, moving our daily tasks from physical desks into immersive digital environments. In fact, Apple, Meta, Google, and Qualcomm are investing billions into spatial computing, betting that it's going to become a core part of everyday life. And today's sponsor, Immersed, is at the forefront of this coming shift. This company is basically reshaping how people create, collaborate, and connect through AI and spatial computing. They have over a million users. 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More than 9,000 investors have already participated. If you're interested in checking out Immersed, check out the link in the description. And now back to our program. And then that will undermine a genuine effort like yours because people say, oh, that's just the government doing its own disinformation, right? You see, I find this a very difficult question because you're absolutely right. Those tools of, you know, these farms and all of that, very negative impact on societies and very divisive, like you explained. And at the same time, I worry that our own governments learn from that, the bad lesson in many cases, right? Then really no one knows what's true or not. Sometimes the world is not black and white. It's not easy to tell what is true, what is false. I agree with that. That's why I think you have to decide, well, I find this to be an honest source of information, right? This is why we're trying, that's our effort, to be an honest source of information that anybody can come to and try. And, you know, of course, it's our perspective. Every source of information has some viewpoint. You have done a lot of contribution to this issue. It cannot depend on one media. Of course. It depends on everyone. So my feeling is, you know, sometimes disinformation causing damage is more serious than autocracy in a democracy country. Why? Because in a democracy country, we have parties, different parties. So sometimes this disinformation damages that party. Your opposite party, do you have that kind of courage to say, no, it's not right? That's right. Or, oh, this disinformation damaged my competitors. So try to exaggerate it, try to make it worse. So in a democracy society, we have a mechanism, check and balance. Administration needs to be checked and balanced by representative mechanism, representative branches. So executive branches, you cannot do whatever you want. You need to get your budget, your law passed by people elected representatives. Check and balance. And this competition, try to win the votes from people. And autocracy, they don't have this. Xi Jinping is a super king of China, whatever he say. So in open society, in democracy, because we have party competition. So when disinformation occurred, especially related to government, related to political project, or related to maybe ethic races, sometimes this party can get advantage from that kind of disinformation. Then what's your choice? To disclose your list is disinformation or try to help the disinformation to destroy your competitors. It's not easy. And not only in the States, but also in Taiwan. We are facing- You're saying you have to do the moral thing. You're saying you have to practice your morality. Yeah. And I do believe democracy is the best system we have. I think it was Winston Churchill that said, democracy is a terrible system, except for all the other systems. Yes. Something like that. Agree. I hope I got it right. There is no perfect system. But the democracy system can let people make decision on your own. You're free. Based on knowledge, information you have. That's why CCP and all the autocracy countries try to pollute your information system. They think that's the best strategy to counter democracy. And democracy can help people, can heal people on their own. Because there is disinformation, then the correct information occurred at the same time. Because it's democracy. Everybody can say anything you want. When somebody says something terrible, when some media provide stupid news, then some media, like your media, like Epoch Times, you can provide your counter information. Then who is the judge? People. I have 100% freedom, access, get all different kinds of information. Then I can do my own judgment. And autocracy is, the information you can only have is your kin allow you to read. You don't have opportunity to make your own judgment. And if we can make our own judgment, even this system full of chaos, compared with the other system, it's still the best way we can live. There's been many ways in which the Chinese Communist Party has kind of pushed itself into Taiwanese society. Including even owning some of the media, having a lot of control over some of the media here. So there's also that aspect. It's not just social media. There's kind of deep connections that it's developed. Some media has the title of media, but it's kind of propaganda for some certain entity. And sometimes we don't like communism. They are willing to spend a bunch of money to damage the other country, but they don't want to use that kind of money to help their own people has brain, healthcare, something like that. Why? Because staying in power is the most important thing for autocracy. Democracy is how to keep your people happy is the most important thing. Try to please all kinds of voters. Try to help my communities because I need your votes next time. So it's a different philosophy. Autocracy try to keep himself stay in power, no matter how many lives sacrificed, no matter the economy going to face a recession. No, I need to spend the money to protect my own power, sabotage my threats. Government try to divide United States, make their society in chaos because then I can protect my position, my power. And inside that system, in China, for example, no one dare to provide second opinion to your leaders. Everyone try to guess what you want. I want to please you. I only provide the answer you want because if I dare to provide the true answer or a second opinion, I'm not only risking my career life, I'm risking my real life. So in that kind of system, everyone try to please the king, the superpower. And people can be sacrificed. Economy can be sacrificed. Social welfare can be sacrificed. So they are willing to using money, using their budget to causing trouble to the other country. But democracy is not that way. If you are a city councilman, you are a federal congressman, or like me, I'm a legislator. The only thing I think that my top priority is to make my people live in happiness. They need job. They need bridge across the river. They need good environment in school. They need their country to be protected. So that's why I want some of my colleagues, so pro-China, they try to cut our self-defense budget. People don't like that. We try to realize what my people want. They want their kids, their grandson, still has the freedom to make their own choice. That's the core spirit of democracy. Not try to please someone higher than you. Not try to make your supervisor happy. Not try to make your own wealthy or make your own life better. No. Democracy, the true spirit is when you become a public servant, serve your public, make your people in happy, safe life, and keep this kind of happiness to next generation. That's how we do things in Taiwan. You mentioned this defense budget that was passed recently, and it's a lot lower than maybe expected. So explain to me more about that situation and the impact of that on the relationship with the United States. We need to talk about this from a bigger picture. Since 2013, Xi Jinping become China leaders, the president of CCP. It increased investment in military expense. Every year, increased 7%. And 2026, China, their expense in military affairs is beyond 1 trillion U.S. dollars. It's a huge amount. And they built destroyers, amphibious boat, all kinds of aircraft, missiles. And Taiwan is a frontier. We are under this kind of giant threat. And Taiwan is not the only one. When China increase their expense in military budget and those military activities, gray zone coercion toward Philippine, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and February 2025 and February 2026, China even send their destroyers sail to Australia, have live fire exercise over there. So it's aggressive, provocative, and they try to create their own new norm. They don't follow all kind of international regulation. They don't respect international law. They don't respect sovereignty owned by different country. They enter Philippines territory water and they keep harass Taiwan territory water. And then they send their aircraft to harass Japan's, their air, their sky. So this kind of threat keep increasing. My personal belief is to protect my country is our own responsibilities. No one should rely your families on somebody else's shoulder. It's our own responsibilities. However, if you realize the value and the importance of Taiwan, give Taiwan's a hand is helping the world. If you look at the map, Taiwan is a center of first island chain. It's strategic importance. Whoever have Taiwan can control Japan. Whoever control Taiwan can control West Pacific and the Philippine Sea. If CCP occupy Taiwan, one island, Okinawa will be no importance. United States need to move their one island defense line backward to Hawaii. So Taiwan play very important strategic position. All the vital transportation to Japan go through Taiwan. And the cargo ship in the world, 51% go through Taiwan. So once- The Taiwan Strait. Taiwan Strait. Yeah, that's right. So once Taiwan Strait occurred military conflict, it's not only damaging Taiwan, it going to destroy global economy. So this is the first importance. Second, Taiwan play very critical, very important vital role in supply chain. Not only semiconductors. Of course, advanced chips, AI chips, Taiwan almost produce 100%. The whole world advanced chip, 96% produce here from Taiwan. And average chips, average semiconductors, 60% manufactured here, local in Taiwan. Not only that, if you look at all kind of machinery, precision machine and low orbit component, even Tesla without Taiwan cannot run. So Taiwan play very important role in global supply chain. And if you want something reliable, without China factor, the portion will be higher. So to defend my own country, to protect my family is our own responsibilities. But if you realize the importance of Taiwan, helping Taiwan is not only helping Taiwanese people, these nice people, but help the world. TSMC is a famous factory now. Some people think, oh, TSMC make too much money. But TSMC is provide fundamental chips. And Taiwan, we are good at that. Once Taiwan TSMC make $1 in Taiwan, create $3.6 in United States. Because TSMC, those chips, when we transport those chips to United States, it become some kind of final goods, become refrigerator, washing machine, satellite, aviation equipments, toys. All the tools need chips. And when Taiwan provide those chips in reasonable price to the world, and most goes to United States, they become some kind of added value products. So it plus 3.6 times value. So why Taiwan matters? Because supply chain, because strategic position, and plus one thing I think is the most important, beyond all the cost or money, value. Taiwan is a frontier of democracy, human rights. Freedom in religious. All the value we believe. Once Taiwan get invaded by CCP, or military conflict occur in this region, it's going to be disaster. So based on this bigger general pictures, my president William Rai, he make a public commitment. We are going to increase our defense budget beyond 3% of our GDP, and 5% by 2029. We need to increase our self-defense expense to show our determination to protect our own country, to stabilize this regional peace and stability. And to show our determination and to increase, to modernize our military defense capability. So that's what we are doing now. So since last year, my government, we increase our annual defense budget near to 600 billion Taiwan dollars. We think it's not enough. So we introduce a spatial budget. Eight years going to increase 1.25 trillion spatial defense budget. However, democracy, you need to communicate with opposition party. So our opposition party, KMT and the TPP, they don't like this. They claim to delete it all, cut it into zero. And the Taiwan mainstream, Taiwanese people don't like- Wait, they want to cut the budget to zero or the increase to zero? Cut it into zero. We don't need a spatial budget. This 1.25 trillion, they think, this spatial budget, we don't need that. Taiwanese people say, no matter which party we support, the poll shows people support spatial defense budget. And those opposition party, they feel the pressure from our people. So international atmosphere, they think Taiwan should be responsible for their own security. From United States, Trump administration urge opposition party being reasonable. Don't delete your own defense budget. If you don't value your own security, nobody will value your security more than you. So our opposition party, under the pressure from our allies, and inside Taiwan, this is most important, all the poll shows people don't like that. So next week, our government going to introduce new spatial budget, try to rescue those budget they delete. So we need to increase our defense annual budget. So plus this, our defense budget going to very close, we are beyond 4% of our GDP. And if you plus Coast Guard expense, our society resilience readiness budget into account, that will be close to 5% of our GDP. My president, William Lai, promised to reach that point by 2029. And next year, 2027, we are quite close to what we commit to defend our own country. Some countries are creating greater cooperation with communist China. For example, my home country, Canada, recently has officially been pursuing strategic relationship, right? The policy has changed quite a bit recently. What do you think of that kind of approach? We are not kids from kindergarten. We can live with, you are CCP's friends, and we are still close friends. Who is naive? Who is childish? CCP, they are. China is the only one to forbidden their friends to make friends with Taiwan. We never object that. Yeah, United States, Canada, Japan, all the country, of course you can be friends of China. It's no problem with Taiwan. And we still can be friends. We are not naive. We know sometimes some country because of commercial interest, sometimes because security issue, sometimes for personal reason, they want to be close with China. We are fine. Well, it's okay. But I guess what I'm asking you is, do you think it's a good idea? Of course, not a good idea. So it's a phenomenon. But this phenomenon has two sides, has two faces. Some country try to get engaged, close partnership with China. And then they try to steal what you can do. They will steal your technology. They will try to dump their mass products to your market, try to replace your original supply chain. They try to encourage their people enter your society. But those people cannot enjoy democracy life. They have deep fear controlled by Beijing government. So there are several countries, Honduras. Honduras stopped the diplomatic relationship with Taiwan a couple of years ago. And they believe in China's commitment, such a big country, commitment, billions of investment to their country. And now, last year, their major income from stream, their agricultural products, China doesn't fulfill their commitment. 40% of their farmer lost their job. And the worst part is, cheap products from China get into their domestic market and destroy their original economic ecology. They suffer from that. So the early of this year, Honduras, their nationwide election, all pro-China candidates, everyone, all 100% pro-China parliament, failed in their election. And those pro-democracy close to United States and the major two candidates say if they win their presidency, they are going to restart their diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. Those two take more than 80% of the votes. You can make friends with China, fine. But if you abandon all the values you believe, you abandon the democracy, you abandon your friends, you abandon the trust, just want to get benefit from China. All outcome will be very miserable. It's not smart move. So Canada is a big country, G7 country. Of course, you have your own strategy to deal with global issues. But if you put Canadian economy close to China, look at China, more than 25% of their younger generation out of employees. Their real estate, the top three company, IPO company, collapsed. Their cash flow stopped. Their tier two countries, tier two cities cannot afford to pay the teachers, public employee, public servants wages and salary. And they keep increasing their expense in military. So that kind of country, if you put your country too close to that kind of society, I think it's not a smart decision. Beijing has put you on a Taiwan hardliner sanctions list for talking about such things. Presumably, there's maybe some other reasons, but how do you respond to that? The sanctions, to me, I got that medal three times. One, they announced that me and Rubio almost at the same time. But they changed Rubio's Chinese name, then Rubio can enter China freely. It's a joke. But to me, some people will say, oh, I got sanctioned by China. It's a medal of honor. Yeah, we can say that. But what I would try to say is a marks. It's a marks of an autocracy, how they treat human beings. I support my own country. I support my kids have their own right to make their own choice. And I got sanctions. Why? It's evidence of an autocracy. When China impose sanction on Rubio, it's not Rubio's business. What Rubio has done, Rubio support democracy allies. Then they impose sanction on Rubio. And now they lift the sanction because he's a state secretary. Too big, I cannot, I can avoid that. So that is a mark. That is evidence of how autocracy deal with affairs related to human beings. Basically you're saying they just have this arbitrary decision-making. This is a mark of this arbitrary decision-making of an autocracy. Yes, I think sometimes it's their weakness. Maybe you will be on the name list of sanction soon. I hope not. Never get to be on those lists at least. It's okay. Trust me, it's okay. But for example, when they put your name on the list to impose sanctions, that means you are doing something positive to human rights, positive to those precious value we believe in. When your name on the list, CCP impose sanction on you, that means they are afraid of you. They can do nothing about you, just only can say, we sanction you. You cannot enter China. We try to do something, harass your relatives in China. We try to harass your business or your friend's business in China. We are doing such a childish thing. They are afraid of you. What you have done, what you believe, jeopardize their power. But you are much closer to China here, just across the street than I am. Are you not worried? Actually, I can share your secret with you. They imposed the sanction on me three times. And they even sent gangsters try to harass me and my family. My kid's life was in danger. The four armed policemen stand in front of my house for a long time. That's a price. When you try to do something right, to choose a route to do something right, it's never an easy thing. Sometimes, be obedient to those monsters. Be obedient to those dictators. Your life will be easier. It's not right. I won't say it's easy. Under that kind of threat, look at your kids, three by seven years old. It's not easy. The only thing you can blame is CCP. We have done nothing wrong. I was a city councilman. Now I am a legislator. When China imposed sanctions on me, you know, in Taiwan, we emphasize transparency. So all the person or company, when they donate contribution to my campaign, I need to honestly file a report to our institute. That would be public. So China, based on those materials, the colon, this is China, we know you are supporting someone named Wang Dingyu. We impose sanctions on him. If you keep supporting him, you will be facing some harsh result. They're doing some this kind, try to intimidate my supporters. This is crime. So I'm happy now. We have more colleagues join my line. Dozens of people, we are all on the list. But I think soon, evil will be gone. Well, Wang Dingyu, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. It's my honor to have you here. I hope you can come to Taiwan more often, please. I'll make a point of that. Thank you all for joining legislator Wang Dingyu and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.