Breitbart
Date: 16 Dec 20190
By: Kristina Wong

Officials from the democratic republic Taiwan are concerned that China is meddling in their upcoming presidential election in January, seeking to back a candidate from an opposing political party that is China-friendly.

They say that although incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen is leading in the polls, they are concerned about what China may do leading up to and on the day of Taiwan’s January 11 election to elect the challenger from the Kuomintang (KMT) party, Han Kuo-yu, the mayor of Kaohsiung.

The concerns have been shared by officials and documented in numerous media reports. A recent NPR report described suspected Chinese state-backed efforts to influence Taiwan’s media, such as buying Taiwanese media companies and creating Facebook pages in Taiwan to become “content mills” for Chinese Communist Party propaganda that have at times been mistakenly picked up by Taiwanese media outlets.

Taiwanese officials suspect that China interfered in their 2018 municipal elections. During those elections, Han enjoyed a surge of popularity after a suspected Chinese-led campaign in the media to win as mayor of Kaohsiung.    [FULL  STORY]