How deadly is CCP’s threat in the information age?
If the CCP threat is led by mercantilist industrial dominance (Note 6), its online offensives have achieved some of the most dramatic results.
For those who are not yet familiar with the power of data, Amy Webb’s mega popular Ted Talk [1] could be an excellent introduction. Amy explained her personal adventure with a dating website, and how the data propelled her, from a ‘left-over women’, to being ranked number 1 on the dating website. Amy is now happily married, and the couple have a beautiful child [1].
However, the same technology could be misused, for example, to alter the outcome of an election. In 2018, the CCP achieved exactly that in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second city.
Mr Han Kuo-yu, later found to be linked to (some say picked by) the CCP, came from nowhere to win the Mayoral election by a resounding majority. Han’s victory caused a political earthquake in Taiwan, because what happened was a near impossibility.
Kaohsiung is the power base and political stronghold of the indigenous Democratic Progressive Party, the DPP. Han on the other hand, is the candidate of the Kuomintang (National Party), or the KMT, which was formed on the Mainland then fled to Taiwan when defeated by the Communists in the civil war 1945–49.