TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) was allegedly assisted by the Chinese military and tech companies during his 2018 campaign for Kaohsiung mayor.
According to a report from Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, the cyber operations force of the People’s Liberation Army, known as the 56th Research Institute, colluded with several tech companies to inflate Han’s popularity online among Kaohsiung voters. The report alleges the PLA spent over NT$90 million (US$2.8 million) to fund an influence campaign backing Han, per LTN.
On Sunday, Han angrily rejected the allegations that a Chinese influence campaign was instrumental to his victory in 2018. He called the reports an insulting, clumsy smear campaign and denied any knowledge of such an online influence campaign, reported UDN.
Han, who has become a central figure within the KMT, was a dark horse candidate in the 2018 mayoral election. His victory came as a shock to many observers given the strong support for the Democratic Progressive Party among Kaohsiung voters over the previous two decades.
In October, a series of audio recordings of conversations surfaced on the dark web. The recordings, reportedly analyzed by Japanese national security officials, are between a PLA official surnamed Ding and Qi Zhongxiang, the CEO of Womin High-Tech, based in Beijing.
In one conversation, Director Ding suggests that Chinese operatives created or manipulated millions of Facebook accounts to sway popular support for Han ahead of the election. The director also expressed confidence that Han would ultimately win, which Han did with almost 54% of the vote.
After a failed presidential bid in 2020, Han was recalled by Kaohsiung voters in June 2020 for his poor performance as mayor. Critics of Han have long accused the politician of working to further Beijing’s interests over those of Taiwan.
With advances in AI, the Yomiuri Shimbun report said Taiwan should expect China to organize even more sophisticated influence campaigns for the 2026 municipal elections and the 2028 national elections. It said entire networks of AI-run social media accounts may be capable of targeting individual Taiwanese internet users for influence operations.
