Taiwan POWER: A Model for Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference Resilience

Ben Graham Jones / Election Consultant

Introduction: Why the Taiwan POWER Model?

The model describes the main characteristics of Taiwan’s overall approach to countering foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in its democratic processes. The reason we articulate the model is to spur a global conversation which defines different types of whole-society response to FIMI. We believe that in the future, decision-makers charged with shaping counter-FIMI resilience in their own societies will benefit from a clear articulation of different models of practice from across the globe.

The Taiwan POWER model is one of practice, but not necessarily a model of best practice. Taiwan’s approach may not be entirely the right approach for other nations. The model does not try to provide all the answers, but serves as a tool for others to derive answers suitable for their own societies. We hope that by articulating the key characteristics of Taiwan’s resilience, others may draw inspiration for whole-society strategies for FIMI resilience in their own geographies.

On 13 January 2024, Taiwanese voters went to the polls to elect the islands’ 16th president and all 113 members of parliament. The PRC’s well-resourced FIMI campaigns formed part of the backdrop of the election. Following the vote, Taiwan’s resilience was widely acclaimed internationally. The New York Times claimed the PRC “failed to sway Taiwan’s election”, while The Hill similarly noted that the PRC had “failed”.

Yet these conclusions may not paint the whole picture. Although Taiwan has made significant strides forward in FIMI resilience, this is not a story of quick and comprehensive success. When faced with the significant FIMI capacity of the PRC, Taiwan’s allies must not overlook the vulnerabilities the islands still face, including areas in which Taiwan still has progress to make.

Equally, it cannot be downplayed that on 20 May 2024, Taiwan inaugurated for the third time a candidate whose victory a dictatorship sixty times more populous sought to prevent. Given the overwhelming disparity in resources between Taiwan and the PRC, this merits serious attention — yet Taiwan’s unique resilience has yet to be fully conceptualized. This is why Doublethink Lab, a Taiwanese civil society organization specializing in countering PRC influence operations, decided to identify the characteristics of Taiwan’s resilience as it currently stands. It adds to a broader post-electoral conversation in which other like-minded organisations such as the Atlantic Council have undertaken important work identifying next steps for Taiwanese resilience.

Taiwan’s resilience has roots that long precede the 2024 election, whilst FIMI is not just about elections: FIMI actors often target many aspects of a society over an extended period. However, FIMI poses particular challenges for elections because of the importance of the decision taken in the election moment. Doublethink Lab Senior Analyst Jerry Yu noted about FIMI actors that the spread of FIMI narratives intensified in December, noting that “when elections come up they emerge”.[1]

Prior to the election, Doublethink Lab observed multiple FIMI incidents and narratives. Following the vote, we undertook interviews with stakeholders across Taiwan, alongside a desk review of work undertaken on FIMI from across the field. These are the inputs upon which this report is based. Doublethink Lab worked with Ben Graham Jones, an elections expert with experience of researching electoral integrity across more than 50 elections globally, to conduct the interviews and compile the findings.

Doublethink Lab observed numerous instances of suspected
FIMI in the run up to Taiwan’s January elections. Source

Across the globe, policymakers are being asked by their citizenry to take steps to protect their society from foreign interference in elections. Models of resilience can provide inspiration for developing approaches attuned to local specificities. This paper seeks to improve global FIMI resilience by launching a discussion on models of best practice by defining the Taiwan POWER Model of FIMI resilience. It is a model of resilience in describing how Taiwan has to some extent fended off FIMI, and insofar as its insights may support contexts elsewhere, it is a model for resilience.

The importance of collaborative learning from Taiwan was underscored eloquently by a lawmaker interviewed for this report. They stated, “we need greater coordination between democratic actors. Otherwise, the PRC will pick us all off, one by one”.

Building FIMI Resilience Through Models of Practice

FIMI was conceptualized to articulate a distinct threat faced by democratic actors. The threat is not ‘misinformation’, because they are intentional, and not simply ‘disinformation’ because the tactics are distinct from those used by domestic disinformation purveyors. Such threats are also not ‘information warfare’ because they occur between entities that are notionally at peace. By 2021, faced with escalating attempts to undermine democratic societies by manipulating information, it was clear that a concept to describe threats to information integrity was missing.

A significant part of the response was spearheaded by the European Union’s External Action Service, which in 2021 initiated a working group in which Doublethink Lab participated. Following the workshops, the EU’s most senior foreign policy official declared that “We have to focus on foreign actors who intentionally, in a coordinated manner, try to manipulate our information environment. We need to work with democratic partners around the world to fight information manipulation by authoritarian regimes more actively. It is time to roll up our sleeves and defend democracy, both at home and around the world.”[2]

All participants at these workshops understood that a clear definition of the challenge was required. Following extensive consultation, FIMI was defined as “a pattern of behavior that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact values, procedures and political processes. Such activity is manipulative in character, conducted in an intentional and coordinated manner. Actors of such activity can be state or non-state actors, including their proxies inside and outside of their own territory”.

With FIMI defined, the focus moved from theory to practice. The concept of FIMI was swiftly integrated into the analytic frameworks of democratic actors across the globe, including the G7[3] and the White House.[4] Approaches were established to encode FIMI threats using an open-source language and format called STIX (Structured Threat Information Expression). [5] Transnational information sharing mechanisms[6] are beginning to take shape that can increase the speed and coordination of responses. Steps have been taken to form a central repository of FIMI incidents identified by like-minded partners. A dedicated Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) has been founded to further strengthen collaboration in countering FIMI.[7] Detailed analysis has provided unprecedented mapping of ecosystems of FIMI threats.[8]

This year, in which more people will vote across the world than ever before, presents an essential opportunity to harness these new means of countering FIMI through transnational information-sharing. Taiwan is often considered a FIMI frontline: a place which experiences FIMI tactics prior to their rollout in other geographies. Consequently, with Taiwan’s election coming at the very outset of the year, we sought to define what constitutes Taiwanese FIMI resilience.

The Taiwan POWER Model is not a formulation for what counter-FIMI strategy elsewhere should definitely aim to achieve. Instead, it provides a starting point for conversations around defining what models of whole-society FIMI resilience can look like. It is not a model of self-proclaimed best-practice, but an ideal type which describes characteristics of current means of FIMI resilience in Taiwan. It builds on existing work which has helped define some of the means by which Taiwan has acted in a decentralised way to combat FIMI. In time, this may serve as support for like-minded partners across the globe seeking to define aspects of an overarching strategic vision for their own resilience efforts.

We hope that in the years to come, this model will exist alongside other models of FIMI resilience. Collectively, we envision that these models will constitute a menu for inspiration and resilience for like-minded partners across the globe. These partners will be able to pick and choose from the different conceptualizations, adapting existing practices for their own efforts towards whole-society preparedness.

Insight from Strengths and Vulnerabilities

We drew three main conclusions from the research. The first conclusion is that despite the distinctive character of Taiwanese culture and politics, Taiwan’s experience may be of value to democracies across the globe. Second, Taiwanese resilience shows specific characteristics that may be articulated as the ‘Taiwan POWER Model ’. Third, Taiwan also exhibits serious vulnerabilities to FIMI that have not been remedied. These conclusions can help better prepare the global democratic community, as they show how even the most well-prepared societies may still face deep-set risks.

Interviewees made clear that Taiwanese resilience was not born overnight. Instead, it was the result of whole-society efforts which brought together government, academia and civil society, and international partners over a period stretching back at least a decade. Despite an overwhelming disparity in resources and none of the advantages accorded to recognized states, Taiwan has succeeded in building a free and vibrant democracy. The perception of Taiwan’s success must also not disguise the serious vulnerabilities that remain, the mitigation of which may be advanced by studying areas of progress.

The PRC conducts its FIMI operations globally as part of a strategy of influence called the United Front.[9] This strategy is showing newfound ambition. Historically, PRC information operations focused primarily on issues of particular local significance to Beijing such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Uighurs. Now, however, PRC influence operations focus not only on these issues but also on discrediting the democratic system in its entirety.

Many of the actors promoting FIMI — such as the PRC’s United Front Work Department or Russia’s GRU — are active across multiple regions and have global political aspirations. Even when the same actors are not present, similar Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) of FIMI often appear in various countries. This is a problem for electoral resilience in particular because election preparedness efforts are often national in scope and refer to a previous election years earlier. The primary question in the minds of stakeholders in one country when looking at FIMI is more likely to be ‘what can be learned from the previous election in my country?’ as opposed to ‘what happened in a recent election on the other side of the world?’.

Democratic societies’ efforts to protect themselves against this threat have stoked renewed global interest in how Taiwan has resisted these campaigns for so long. By looking at other countries’ experience in building resilience to FIMI, particularly those that have recently held elections, decision-makers can have a more up-to-date understanding of how to bolster resilience.

Five characteristics of the Taiwan POWER Model

We believe that powerful visual representations can help communicate models of resilience to the global stakeholder community. We visualize the Taiwan POWER Model using an umbrella held up by a diverse range of stakeholders. The umbrella represents society’s collective resilience against a FIMI storm that seeks to penetrate its defenses.

The umbrella consists of five distinct components, expressed through the acronym of ‘POWER’. Each of the umbrella’s five components identifies a characteristic of Taiwanese FIMI resilience. These are (1) Purpose-driven, (2) Organic, (3) Whole-society, (4) Evolving, and (5) Remit-bound. These components are not specific actions, but defining features of the overall counter-FIMI landscape.

Purpose-driven: Strategic discipline amongst Taiwanese democratic actors is facilitated not by a single organization or a shared strategic plan, but a clear sense of purpose.

A consistent theme of the interviews was that the counter-FIMI community in Taiwan shares a strong sense of common purpose rooted in the shared FIMI threat. This was especially notable given that as the 2024 election approached, Taiwan lacked structural mechanisms that often facilitate collaboration in other societies. There was no overarching group capable of speaking on behalf of large swathes of civil society, nor did civil society share any specific multi-year vision. Despite this, a shared underlying sense of purpose facilitated collaboration between organizations.

One area in which this was evident was in the research that drove counter-FIMI actions. The counter-FIMI community in Taiwan was equipped with significant insight thanks to participants’ willingness to share resources and embrace open-source approaches. Cofacts, a fact-checking organization, shared its API to help partners identify false claims to rebut to their own audiences.[10] Citizen Congress Watch conducted pre-election focus groups which secured expert insight on the issue of trust, then shared this valuable research with like-minded organizations. Doublethink Lab published research on which disinformation narratives had been encountered by electors in successive elections, enabling partners to understand which narratives were reaching voters.[11]

An environment of mutual trust meant that concerns about other organizations ‘taking credit’, or territorial disputes over remit, were less likely to manifest as they may in civil societies which lack shared purpose. Despite operational differences, each of the above organizations harnessed a shared sense of purpose which lowered the opportunity costs of collaboration.

Organic: Taiwan’s resilience is primarily driven from the bottom-up. Government plays a role as a funding body and in providing overarching directions regarding the significance and nature of the threat, but action is decentralized.

To understand the organic character of Taiwan’s FIMI resilience, it is necessary to review the history of its development. Many of the organizations that today form the counter-FIMI landscape in Taiwan, or their leadership, were part of or inspired by the activists of the Sunflower Movement in 2014.

At that time, Taiwan’s then-ruling party attempted to pass the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, a Beijing-backed accord which would have brought closer ties with the PRC, without the standard clause-by-clause review. Thanks to popular activism, this effort was defeated. The Sunflower Movement showed that with unity of purpose, PRC influence operations could be successfully defeated from the bottom-up.

However, the wheels had only just begun to turn. Just as significant as the rejection of the trade pact with an autocratic Beijing was the Sunflower Movement’s role in bringing together like-minded individuals into a loosely organized community which shared a sense of purpose about Taiwan’s future. Those who would later occupy key nodes within Taiwanese FIMI resilience came together at this seminal moment.

Over subsequent years, this initial strength of purpose was consolidated. The generation of the Sunflower Movement witnessed the PRC’s draconian response to the Hong Kong protests in 2019–20. They witnessed the scandalous revelations regarding the treatment of the Uighur community. They witnessed the increasing FIMI threat at home, laid bare during the elections Taiwan holds every two years.

By 2024, this generation was institutionalizing this purpose across Taiwanese non-profit organisations, media, academia, the Legislative Yuan (Parliament), and elsewhere. The fundamentally organic character of Taiwanese resilience had been engrained across all sectors of society as the Sunflower Movement generation graduated into leadership roles.

Relations between the government and this independent-minded grouping of changemakers have not always been seamless. However, by and large, the Taiwanese authorities have respected the dynamism of civil society and left it to continue its counter-FIMI programing, restricting its own role to providing strategic direction about the nature of the threat and funding for civil society organizations’ (CSOs) work. Although in the face of the scale of FIMI some are calling for a more far-reaching role for the authorities, the status quo remains a largely organic and decentralized counter-FIMI response.

Describing Taiwanese resilience as organic does not mean that the government has not developed its own counter-FIMI mechanisms. It has done a great deal. At a strategic level, the Tsai Ing-Wen government had two main roles in empowering civil society. The first involved underscoring particular threats worthy of societal response. This included, for example, flagging concerning narratives such as the misogynistic Tsai’s Secret History[12], an e-book promoting PRC narratives and falsehoods about the outgoing president during the election campaign which was used as a script for generative AI disinformation videos. The second role of government was to provide funding to the sector as a whole.

The administration was conscious of the political backlash if it was perceived to be too close to CSOs, so largely sought to foster civil society’s organic resilience through these two tasks. Rather than stifle civil society with micromanagement, this approach has largely served to empower organizations.

At an operational level, the Government also undertook its own responses to what at the time was disinformation. For example, the Executive Yuan, the Government’s executive branch, mainstreamed the ‘2–2–2’ principle across Government. The 2–2–2 principle stipulated that within two hours of a false claim or narrative being identified and a decision being taken that responding is appropriate, two images should be shared alongside a rebuttal written in fewer than 200 words. A network of social profiles were established at departmental levels to broadcast factual messaging.

Beyond this, the administration also worked to disrupt FIMI operations through more traditional means including legislation. Such measures showed that organic counter-FIMI resilience need not come at the expense of Government action on FIMI. When accompanied by a respect for civil society’s operational autonomy, the experience of Taiwan shows that Government can also have an important role to play in nurturing organic resilience.

Whole-society: Taiwan’s resilience is expressed across a swathe of institutions including universities, civil society organizations, media outlets, and social platforms. Initiative is diffuse rather than concentrated.

PRC FIMI operations are often described as ‘whole-society’. United Front FIMI campaigns in Taiwan stretch across a broad swathe of institutions and actors. The interests of people who do business in the PRC can be harmed if they make the ‘wrong’ statements or support the wrong politicians. In addition to targeting institutions across Taiwanese society, the PRC mobilizes resources from its own society for FIMI operations against Taiwan, such as educators, businesses, and government offices. Experts have noted that United Front information operations in Taiwan increasingly use local narratives and actors. This shift may see a rise in a ‘domestication’ of Beijing’s FIMI attempts, which may become more challenging to separate from information manipulation occurring locally. This trend underscores the importance of a response rooted across Taiwanese institutions.

Examples of specific incidents of resilience to FIMI internationally have underscored the importance of collaboration across society.[13] Positively, Taiwan’s own response to FIMI also mobilises a broad range of societal actors. This ranges from public bodies, to academia, to journalists, to many other types of institution. However, as outlined below, although the current response is whole-society, it may not be adequately ‘whole-society’ and could benefit from engaging a broader swathe of actors.

Evolving: Taiwan’s approach is not static, but moves in step with changes in the FIMI threat.

Effective FIMI response must continually adapt to changing tactics. As of 2024, we know that contemporary FIMI incidents across the globe typically occur across multiple platforms, intensify as election day approaches, and often do not involve the use of generative AI.[14] However, these characteristics may not always reflect the FIMI of tomorrow. When we look at the example of Taiwan, for example, we see that significant content produced by generative AI was indeed spread throughout the electoral period. Organizations which had not adapted to this new reality would have found themselves ill-prepared to respond.

The overall FIMI ecosystem in Taiwan mixes older and newer techniques. Influence operations deployed through means such as traditional media and subsidized tours to the PRC long predate modern online communications. FIMI often plays on narratives that stretch back decades. However, Taiwanese FIMI resilience has evolved alongside Beijing’s FIMI operations. One driver of this became clear during the interviews: organizations at the heart of Taiwan’s FIMI resilience have embraced innovation at every turn.

Consider how one Taiwanese NGO, MyGoPen, evolved its FIMI response to align with FIMI threats. Founded in 2015, much of the organization’s work involved going into communities to educate people about information disorder in traditional media. Faced with the deployment of video-based disinformation in Taiwan in the 2016 Presidential election, MyGoPen developed new rebuttal capabilities. Now, the organization is faced with the rise of AI-facilitated disinformation. It has duly responded: during the 2024 election campaign, MyGoPen used five different types of software to help assess the authenticity of alleged deepfakes. It is already looking ahead to next-generation information disorder and considering how it will adapt its methodologies in response.

The organization’s continually evolving response has been fueled by collaboration. In recent years, MyGoPen has found engagement with fellow members of the International Fact-Checking Network to be invaluable in building its resilience. The network brings together organizations from across the globe which meet stringent requirements for quality factchecking with MyGoPen and the Taiwan FactCheck Center, and has facilitated the continual sharing of best practices. It was clear in discussion with Taiwanese CSOs that this willingness to evolve and learn is a common theme of organizations in the Taiwanese counter-FIMI space.

Remit-bound: Different organizations focus primarily on their own specialisms without seeking to duplicate the labors of others, maximizing collective efficiency.

The description of Taiwanese resilience as remit-bound does not mean that there is no competition, nor that CSOs avoid innovating into new areas. On the contrary, despite a limited pool of funding, there are a significant number of highly innovative CSOs operating in this space. However, there is a remarkably high division of labor between these organizations. Interviewees reported that the diversified remits of organizations working to counter FIMI does not typically result in zero-sum competition. This may be influenced by the sense of shared purpose underpinning their work.

For example, the Science Media Center, Doublethink Lab, and FakeNews Cleaner are three of the many organizations which form part of a collective ‘fact-checking’ effort. However, these organizations all fulfill highly specialized roles. The Science Media Center helps journalists fact-check technical claims by connecting them with academic expertise. Doublethink Lab investigates the actors and behaviors, and shares incidents of information manipulation with social platforms. FakeNews Cleaner focuses on educating elderly people on disinformation tactics. Although there is some crossover, particularly in the work of larger organizations, most organizations ‘own’ part of the space.

The result is a myriad of specialists, each of whom has an understanding of how to engage their own particular stakeholders. This helps avoid the risks of duplication and inefficiency that may impede work to counter information disorder in other geographies. The result is a network of organizations focused around relatively clearly defined and demarcated remits. As Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Sze Fung Lee puts it “Each entity specializes in tackling a part of the disinformation campaign, but together those efforts constitute a comprehensive response”.[15]

The question of causation is relevant to other countries seeking inspiration from the Taiwan model. The diversified remit of Taiwanese counter-FIMI organizations may be a result of organic discussions within the community of purpose that formed in the Sunflower Movement as they institutionalized their activism. It may also reflect that a broad cross-section of Taiwanese society support the ideas of the organizations underpinning Taiwan POWER, bringing all the diverse skills and functions from across the society into the collective effort.

Using the Taiwan POWER Model

The ultimate aim of articulating the Taiwan Model is to add to a ‘menu of resilience’ that stakeholder communities across the globe can draw from when devising strategic responses to FIMI that are appropriate for their own societies. The umbrella has Taiwanese characteristics, but the storm is global.

The Taiwan POWER Model emerges from a specific institutional, legal and societal context. It does not seek to prescribe the optimal actions of other democracies faced with comparable challenges. The model is descriptive, not instructive. It identifies features of Taiwan’s FIMI resilience and underscores reasons why these features have been valuable for the islands.

However, the umbrella has Taiwanese characteristics, but the storm is global. Equally, there are several reasons to believe the Taiwan POWER Model may be a suitable point of reference for discussions in other geographies:

1. Tactics are increasingly applied across multiple contexts

The Taiwan POWER Model has emerged in response to the same storm of disinformation and distrust, often fueled by similar actors who are responsible for FIMI across the globe. The model has features which clearly reflect the Taiwanese character of that innovation. However, the storm to which it responds is increasingly global in scope. Taiwan has been described as a ‘laboratory’ from which FIMI tactics are later deployed elsewhere.[16] There is also a trend of localization of the same underlying PRC FIMI tactics, with the adoption of local vehicles, using locally embedded narratives, local influencers, and localized United Front organizations.[17] Concurrently, other FIMI actors such as pro-Russian accounts often act in concert with pro-PRC FIMI actors. Consequently, we believe that an articulation of Taiwan’s FIMI resilience is likely to be of value for other democracies.

2. Taiwan operates largely under the same international standards as other democratic countries

A central international standard in the domain of elections globally is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a document which enjoys consent from a majority of countries in the world. In 2009, Taiwan took the covenant into its domestic legal framework. This means that the ICCPR provision is increasingly drawn upon in interpretations of international law to describe FIMI — the stipulation that states have an obligation to act against “manipulative interference” — is as relevant to Taiwan as it is to any other democratic polity acting in adherence to international law.[18] Taiwan is also signatory to a range of other commonly recognized international standards relevant to FIMI, such as CEDAW (UN Convention on Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women) [19] and the UNCAC (UN Convention Against Corruption)[20].

3. The concepts are universal

The Taiwan POWER Model provides a basis for action to which all societies can relate. The concepts it depends on, such as purpose, innovation, and division of labor, describe phenomena intrinsic within human societies regardless of culture, legal system, regulatory framework, geography, religious belief, or other contingencies. Consequently, it is broad enough to be interpreted in other contexts, but specific enough to communicate insights which have worked with some success in Taiwan.

4. The Taiwan POWER Model builds resilience for the next-generation of FIMI

Countries often hold elections only once every four or five years. Institutions typically conduct post-election analyses with a view to improving their processes in time for the next vote. However, FIMI tactics evolve on swifter timescales than four to five years. When electoral institutions’ primary point of reference is their previous election, as opposed to recent FIMI-targeted elections elsewhere in the world, they may fail to adequately preempt FIMI campaigns.

Taiwan has elections at least every two years, meaning that its CSOs and institutions must continually look ahead and innovate if they are to adequately address the FIMI threat. The ‘evolving’ characteristic of the Taiwan POWER Model reflects the success of Taiwan in continually looking ahead to emerging FIMI techniques. Resilience in a fast-moving FIMI landscape comes from integrating local insight with the very latest in global best practice.

Effective work towards counter-FIMI resilience should establish a clear, long-term vision for the mobilization of a broad spectrum of societal actors towards its aims. We suggest the Taiwan POWER Model may be one option to help actors describe the overall strategic end to which counter-FIMI efforts may aspire. In looking at this, and other, articulations of models of resilience, policymakers seeking to define resilience at a strategic level may then seek to define the end to which approaches at national and sub-national levels work towards.

Learning from Taiwan’s Vulnerabilities

Taiwan’s work to fend off FIMI in the 2024 election merits acclaim. However, any one election is only one battle in the PRC’s information war.[21] Taiwanese resilience should not be romanticized. Stakeholders almost unanimously agreed that Taiwan has unharnessed opportunities to strengthen its FIMI resilience. These vulnerabilities exist despite the level of effort that has gone into FIMI resilience, rendering them a valuable object of study for global efforts to learn from the Taiwanese experience.

In some respects, remedying these vulnerabilities may be achieved by further implementing fundamental characteristics of the Taiwan POWER Model. They may reflect areas in which the model has not been implemented enough. For example, the whole-of-society approach has succeeded in generating a robust basis of shared purpose. There are, however, key institutions of Taiwanese society such as temples and neighborhood representatives that could be better brought into the fold of this approach. Likewise, the defined remit of CSOs in Taiwan has facilitated an efficient response. However, even clearer remits could be established by elaborating a shared strategic approach, which is currently lacking.

Recent analysis from Taiwan has identified important vulnerabilities beyond the scope of this report, such as a need for greater focus on attribution as opposed to just factchecking, for greater implementation of insight from cyber threat intelligence into policy response, and for greater funding of independent journalism[13]. Vulnerabilities that arose during the interview research included:

1. Even whole-society resilience may not yet be whole-society enough

Taiwan’s FIMI resilience involves many actors, including educational institutions, CSOs, think tanks, academics, the media, and public institutions. Equally, there are important vulnerabilities which reflect the opportunities Taiwan still faces to improve the whole-society aspect of its approach.

One example is the involvement of local neighborhood representatives, an elected position, in subsidized tours to the PRC. These have been an under-researched component of FIMI in Taiwan. These tours target various groups across society, but are particularly numerous at local levels of governance. Participants visit venues including cultural institutions in the PRC, enabling them to feel that these are apolitical endeavors.

Some local neighborhood representatives in Taiwan organize ‘cultural exchange tours’ to the PRC which are subsidized by United Front organizations; these serve as subsidized holidays during which PRC narratives are promoted to participants. During these tours, community leaders will often meet with PRC officials, including more senior officials than their Taiwanese counterparts.

This tactic of using visits to the PRC to conduct FIMI has a long history in Taiwan. It is now being rolled out across the globe, including to target groups such as journalists in countries where the PRC wishes to expand its influence. Action to reduce the influence of these tours has been impeded by political resistance and the opposition of those who benefit from them. Finding a way to deter these representatives from promoting FIMI and involving them in the broader counter-FIMI effort may improve overall resilience. Questions have also been raised about the origin of the funding around a number of temples in Taiwan itself, which play a critical role in communicating with and mobilizing many Taiwanese communities.

Nonetheless, the future expansion of the whole-society approach does not come without risk. As more actors are engaged across society, it may become more difficult to retain the underlying shared purpose at the core of Taiwanese CSOs. Considering the preconditions of purpose, such as securing reliable data on trust, articulating a powerful vision, and mapping stakeholder incentives, may ensure continuity of purpose. This challenge reflects the underlying difficulty of balancing strategic consistency with the broadest possible coalition of counter-FIMI practitioners.

2. Lack of an overarching strategic vision for the whole-society response to FIMI

In Taiwan, there is neither an overarching civil society group which can provide a united voice on behalf of civil society nor a strategic plan bringing together multiple organizations across a multi-year period around a shared FIMI resilience vision. Conversely, despite some institutional contestation and entrepreneurship within such work, the PRC aims of imposing its system on Taiwan whilst minimizing the costs of annexation benefit from a clear strategic end goal.

The fact that Taiwan has succeeded in fending off PRC FIMI attempts without long-term pan-societal strategic planning with broad buy-in is a testament to the degree of shared purpose present in Taiwanese society. Although it is likely to still be a useful exercise for Taiwanese civil society to develop such a framework over the coming years, there are insights for other nations seeking to learn from the Taiwan POWER Model. Fostering a coalition around a shared sense of purpose can help generate a degree of strategic discipline that can provide a robust basis for building FIMI resilience.

Other countries faced with FIMI that do not benefit from the shared purpose articulated in the Taiwan POWER Model may need to find ways of facilitating it. Shared challenges such as developing mechanisms to mitigate impacts of low-cost generative AI are triggering new forms of cross-societal collaboration which could be channeled to address this. Doing so strategically will likely necessitate a strong understanding of the capabilities, opportunities, and motivations of the stakeholders in each society that could form part of a counter-FIMI coalition.

3. Taiwanese counter-FIMI work could be better integrated with other countries’ own resilience mechanisms

The Taiwan POWER Model is a description of strategic response within one jurisdiction. However, significant strength can also be drawn into national response efforts through global collaboration. This requires not only whole-society measures but connections between societies. Effectively advancing Taiwan’s resilience may require delivering progress not only within Taiwan itself, but beyond Taiwan’s borders.

PRC operations against Taiwan also take place in other countries. This relates not to PRC FIMI against other countries, but against Taiwan in locations outside Taiwan. Such operations may ultimately be just as useful to the PRC as those within Taiwan, because they may affect other electorates’ and policymakers’ willingness to provide Taiwan ideational, military, economic, and other means of support. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies has noted that ‘As long as there is a deficit of knowledge regarding Taiwan in global discourse, Beijing will have ample space to actively shape and manipulate public narratives’.[24]

When these operations take place, they often go unmitigated. There are rarely Taiwanese voices in other countries to rebut the narratives. Taiwan lacks any global network of like-minded foreign spokespeople to articulate Taiwan’s cause using local references. More could be done to develop data-driven messaging and rebuttal to support pro-Taiwanese messaging in other democracies to counter PRC FIMI, including around the value of peace and security in the Taiwan Strait.

The international dimension is important not only for supporting any one country’s mechanisms, but for building counter-FIMI capacity at the global level. Transnational resilience can be strengthened through international data-sharing and common analytic frameworks. Sharing insights from Taiwan’s experience is an important step in facilitating this. With a superior understanding of emerging global FIMI threats, actors across the globe will be better placed to hone their own resilience mechanisms.

During the 2024 election process, Doublethink Lab’s M-Hub election observation platform encoded threats using the DISARM framework. DISARM offers a means for encoding FIMI that enables a common understanding of 58 threat behaviors. Some of this FIMI was deployed across multiple countries, such as a narrative about the alleged mistreatment of migrant laborers that was amplified by Russian state media internationally. The usage of DISARM unlocks the potential for robust global data to be secured on the overall FIMI landscape across multiple geographies.

Doublethink Lab’s work with taking this framework forward is a significant milestone for the advancement of FIMI resilience in Taiwan. However, across the Indo-Pacific region there remain many places where no such efforts to use DISARM are being made. It is one example of how nurturing new and existing means of Taiwanese collaboration with actors overseas may better facilitate threat mitigation at scale.

Conclusion: Towards a Menu for Whole-Society FIMI Resilience

The Taiwan POWER Model offers a framework of preparedness that describes a context facing significant FIMI. The model may be used to systematize discussions on counter-FIMI strategic resilience. We visualize the model as an umbrella erected through the collective efforts of society. Taiwan POWER is an umbrella with Taiwanese characteristics, but the storm it defends against is increasingly global.

Ultimately, durable FIMI resilience will require learning not only from Taiwan, but from other contexts across the globe. It will require taking models of practice and considering their relevance to local specificities. In articulating the Taiwan POWER Model, we have sought to provide one option from which such inspiration may be drawn.

The author wishes to thank Ai-Men Lau, David Green, Tim Niven, and Tanya You for their contributions to this article.

Reference and footnotes

1. Taiwan’s Doublethink Lab outlines China’s election meddling in FIMI report | Taiwan News | Jan. 19, 2024 16:59
2. Speech to the European Parliament by Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. 3 August 2022.
3. G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (2021). Annual Report. Available at https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/rapid-response-mechanism-mecanisme-reponse-rapide/2021-annual-report-rapport-annuel.aspx?lang=eng
4. US-EU Joint Statement of the Trade and Technology Council, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/31/u-s-eu-joint-statement-of-the-trade-and-technology-council-2/
5. https://www.oasis-open.org/2023/11/16/ oasis-defending-against-disinformation-dad-cdm/
6. Ten things Taiwan can teach Canada about bolstering democratic resilience: Sze-Fung Lee | Macdonald-Laurier Institute
7. EU DisinfoLab (2023). Towards a European Redefinition of Foreign Interference, available at https://www.disinfo.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/20230412_FIMI-FS-FINAL.pdf
8. Countering China’s Use of Private Firms in Covert Information Operations | Gaute Friis, Nickson Quak, Sara Shah, and Elliot Stewart | Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
9. The United Front is a network of party and state agencies that aims to influence groups outside of the Chinese Communist Party and claims the right to speak on behalf of these groups, particularly civil society. For more information, please refer to this ASPI/ICPC report and explainer, and this paper produced by the US Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. For practical guidance, see IRI’s toolkit ‘Countering China’s Information Manipulation’.
10. Democratizing Fact-Checking with Cofacts | Code for All
11. 2024 Taiwan Election: The Increasing Polarization of Taiwanese Politics — Reinforcement of Conspiracy Narratives and Cognitive Biases | Doublethink Lab
12. 2024 Taiwan Elections: Foreign Influence Observation — Preliminary Statement | Doublethink Lab
13. See for example The “#Macron leaks” operation: a post-mortem | Atlantic Council and FIMI: Towards a European Redefinition of Foreign Interference | EUvsDisinfo
14. 2nd EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats | European External Action Service
15. Ten things Taiwan can teach Canada about bolstering democratic resilience: Sze-Fung Lee | Macdonald-Laurier Institute
16. The Evolution of China’s Interference in Taiwan | The Diplomat
17. EEAS Stratcom’s responses to foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in 2023 | European External Action Service
18. UN (ICCPR), HRC, General Comment 25 to Article 25, para . 19: “Voters should be able to form opinions independently, free of… manipulative interference of any kind .”
19. Signed 2007 and followed by the CEDAW Enforcement Act of 2012
20. Act to Implement UNCAC (2015)
21. How Taiwan Should Combat China’s Information War | Journal of Democracy
22. China’s hybrid influence in Taiwan: Non-state actors and policy responses | Hybrid Center of Excellence
23. https://purl.stanford.edu/fg865kf5598
24. Building International Support for Taiwan | Center for Strategic and International Studies