Taipei warns of cognitive warfare as China offers to evacuate Taiwanese from Middle East

TAIPEI – The group of Taiwanese travellers looked weary but relieved after their flight from Istanbul landed safely in Shanghai.

“Thank you so much. I want to express my gratitude to our motherland,” one of them said with a big smile, after disembarking from Flight MU704 operated by China Eastern Airlines.

Another traveller, wheeling his suitcase through Shanghai Pudong International Airport, told reporters with a grin that he felt “grateful” because he “almost could not come back”. 

These were scenes from a March 10 news report by Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), which said Beijing had assisted more than 70 Taiwanese on group tours to return home after they had been “stranded in the Middle East” amid the US-Israeli war with Iran.

The Chinese authorities had arranged a flight to Taipei for them via a transfer in Shanghai, the report added.

For the tourists, the relief was immense. They had reportedly been stuck in Istanbul, Turkey, for five days after their original flight to Taiwan via Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, was cancelled.

But Taipei officials have warned that the narrative may be part of Beijing’s cognitive warfare strategy to diminish the island’s sovereignty while eroding public trust in the Taiwanese government. 

“The Communist Party of China often uses incidents like natural disasters or crises to spread claims that our government is ineffective in disaster relief and lacks the ability to evacuate its citizens,” said Mr Shen Yu-chung, a deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC).

“But our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already responded promptly (to the conflict). Our government has made every effort to assist Taiwanese citizens leaving conflict zones, and the results so far have been positive,” he added.

Responding to the CCTV report, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it had not received any reports about this group of travellers from its overseas missions. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Mission in Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, functions as Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the country.

The case also appeared to be a matter of travel delays due to cancelled flights, rather than anyone being stranded in an active conflict zone, the ministry added.

As at March 14, more than 2,000 Taiwanese have returned to Taiwan from the Middle East, with the ministry helping them secure commercial flights locally or arranging overland travel routes to neighbouring countries with open airspace.

Another three Taiwanese still require evacuation aid, said the ministry, adding that it would maintain close contact with them and provide all necessary assistance.

Associate Professor Chen Shih-min, a political science analyst from National Taiwan University, told The Straits Times that the CCTV report was “obviously Chinese propaganda”.

“Beijing wants to exploit the situation and broadcast the idea that they are doing a good job in protecting their citizens, which, to them, include the Taiwanese,” he said. 

“But when China is also sending military threats to Taiwan on a daily basis, it will be hard for many Taiwanese to fully trust Beijing’s intentions,” he added.

Beijing views Taiwan as its own territory and has in recent years ramped up its military pressure tactics, including regularly sending military planes and ships near the island to assert its sovereignty claims. 

The CCTV report comes one week after the Chinese Embassy in Israel issued a notice for its citizens to register for evacuation to Egypt, which explicitly included holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits” – travel documents issued by the Chinese authorities to Taiwanese. This is a mandatory document for Taiwanese travelling to China, used in place of a passport.

Taipei immediately rebuffed the offer, saying that it had already activated its own mechanisms and did not require Beijing to “meddle”.

“(Bejing) always takes advantage of situations like this to express its sovereignty over Taiwan,” said Mr Liang Wen-chieh, another deputy minister from the MAC.

“We expect there will be another wave of online manipulation or video manipulation tactics. We urge the people of Taiwan to see through these tricks,” he warned.

Taiwanese social media users were split in their reactions. While some said Taiwanese should be cautious of the political implications behind accepting assistance from Beijing, others said that any form of humanitarian aid in a crisis should be welcomed.

Dr Simona Grano, a senior fellow on Taiwan at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, believes Taipei’s suspicions are valid and that the government is “not overreacting”.

“China has been known to use such events to reinforce its own narrative of Taiwan as an ‘internal affair’, all the while trying to capitalise on positive international reactions,” she told ST.

“After all, other governments that help out stranded citizens of another country usually do not need to make such ‘aid efforts’ well known,” she added.

Beijing has long pledged similar offers of assistance to Taiwanese people overseas. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, China’s embassy in Kyiv announced evacuation plans that explicitly invited “Taiwanese compatriots” to register using their Chinese-issued travel permits. 

Shortly after, China-based Taiwanese vlogger Lin Wei-kang’s video praising the Chinese response amid the crisis went viral on both Chinese and Taiwanese social media. In the clip, which was also shared by Chinese state-owned media outlets, he claimed that “the motherland” would always protect Taiwan. 

In reality, Taipei had evacuated Taiwanese by bus to Poland and Slovakia several days before China’s evacuation operations began. 

Assistant Professor James Chen, an international relations expert at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, noted that Beijing’s assistance claims are part of China’s long-term “grand strategy” to influence Taiwanese attitudes.

“Beijing is trying to win the hearts and minds of Taiwanese in different ways. Portraying itself as able and willing to help Taiwanese in need is one way,” he said.