Taiwan a textbook case of China’s ‘sharp power’ approach: scholar

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/21
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan 

Taipei, Nov. 21 (CNA) Taiwan is a textbook case of China’s use of “sharp power” to manipulate or undermine a democracy and project its influence abroad, a situation that did not sound alarm bells until recently, political scientist Wu Rwei-ren (吳叡人) said Wednesday.

China’s recent efforts to influence Taiwan’s upcoming local government elections have finally alerted people to the inroads China’s sharp power have made into Taiwan society, Wu said at a forum.

The panoply of information operations launched by China’s cyber army against candidates during the election campaign is “the biggest crisis facing Taiwan’s democracy,” said Wu, an associate research fellow at the Academia Sinica.

“Sharp power” is defined as efforts by authoritarian influences to pierce, penetrate, or perforate the political and information environments in targeted countries, according to the United States National Endowment Foundation in a 2017 report.
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