New Delhi: Ahead of the presidential election that will be held along with general elections in Taiwan in January 2024, China, as is the practice, has reportedly engaged in a cognitive warfare with the East Asian island nation but this time drew in India as well.
At the centre of this controversy is a purported agreement supposed to be signed between India and Taiwan that would allow 100,000 Indians to migrate to Taiwan and work in different sectors. Reports started emerging in September this year that India and Taiwan were on the verge of signing a migrant mobility agreement. Initial reaction to such reports in Taiwan was muted.
Taiwan is facing a shortage of workers due to its ageing population. India, with its young population, is a source of migrant workers in many countries across the world. Hence, such an agreement between India and Taiwan could only be seen as normal.
In November, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in a media briefing that he hoped the migrant worker memorandum of agreement would be signed as soon as possible because the pact is expected to benefit both parties.
“Negotiations by their very nature tend to not have a finite timeline,” Bagchi said. “But we hope that they will be concluded in due course and that it will soon be possible to benefit from this mobility partnership.”
Taiwan’s CNA news agency, citing a Taiwanese source, reported that Taipei and New Delhi had been negotiating the agreement since 2020, but that talks had been stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic for some time. The source said both sides had almost completed initial discussions and that the signing of the MoU was scheduled for the end of 2024. According to the CNA report, Taiwanese firms were particularly interested in hiring people from India’s northeastern states because of similarities in culture and diet.
Then, again in November, Bloomberg news agency published a report that Taiwan “could hire as many as 100,000 Indians to work at factories, farms and hospitals” and the agreement could signed as early as this month. This time, however, there were sharp reactions on social media showing Indians in poor light.
One user of X (formerly Twitter) posted: “Indian migrant workers are coming to Taiwan. There are hundreds of thousands of them. Are your children safe?”
Another post read: “The safety problem of Taiwanese women will be more serious. Bringing in Indian migrant workers is courting death.”
According to a report in the news portal ExNEWS earlier this month, at the same time, official media accounts such as “Taiwan Net” and “Tong Media” affiliated to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office simultaneously released videos questioning the Taiwan government’s decision-making. “Does it really understand the voice of the (Taiwan) people?”
On the Dcard social platform, known as the “Taiwan version of Facebook”, one post read: “Compared to Indians, Chinese workers at least understand Chinese, have better control, and are more efficient.”
The ExNews report cited a Taiwanese national security source as saying the trend of online comments on the Taiwan-India migrant worker agreement is highly consistent with China’s historical operational methods of launching cognitive operations against Taiwan.
Cognitive warfare is an unconventional form of warfare that uses cyber tools to alter enemy cognitive processes, exploit mental biases or reflexive thinking, and provoke thought distortions, influence decision-making and hinder actions, with negative effects, both at the individual and collective levels.
“The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) not only creates divisions within Taiwan, but also exploits Taiwanese people’s concerns about employment and public security to create conflicts between Taiwan and India,” the source was quoted as saying by ExNEWS. “It can be said that it is using a borrowed knife to drive a wedge between Taiwan and India.”
Though India and Taiwan do not have official diplomatic ties due to Beijing’s One-China Policy, the two sides nevertheless share cordial relations. Taiwan does not have an embassy or consulates in India. Instead, the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Centres (TECCs) serve as representative offices of Taiwan. Taiwan has set up three TECCs in India – in New Delhi, Chennai and most recently in Mumbai.
India is a major focus area of Taiwan’s new foreign policy, dubbed the New Southbound Policy, adopted in 2016. According to this policy of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the East Asian island nation is striving to broaden exchanges and cooperation with India and five South Asian nations, the 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Australia and New Zealand in areas such as commerce, culture and technology.
This will mean lesser dependence on mainland China for Taiwan’s economic development. Taiwan is the world’s 22nd largest economy and was dubbed one of the four Asian tigers in the late 20th century, the others being Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
Regarding China’s meddling in Taiwan’s electoral process, an article published on the website of American think tank Atlantic Council last week highlighted that it is never a question of “if” China will try to influence Taiwan’s elections, but “how” China will try to influence Taiwan’s elections.
“For decades, China has tried to sway Taiwanese voters through local institutions, such as temples and online campaigns,” the article read. “Messaging from the PRC (People’s Republic of China) in the past has sought to portray Beijing in a positive light, appeal to Taiwanese voters to vote for pro-PRC candidates, and even push Taiwanese voters to not vote at all.”
This time, with incumbent Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen not being eligible to contest as she has completed two consecutive terms in office, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has nominated incumbent Vice President Lai Ching-te as its candidate for the post of president.
The major opposition Kuomintang (KMT) has nominated New Taipei Mayor, Hou Yu-ih, as its candidate for the presidential campaign. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has nominated its leader, Ko Wen-je, a former Mayor of Taipei, as its candidate for the president’s post.
Regarding the proposed migrant mobility agreement, Hou of KMT, a pro-China unification party, incorrectly cited the November Bloomberg report as stating that an MOU had already been signed to bring in Indian migrant workers. Hou made this assertion during a televised policy presentation forum on December 20.
Eventually, to put all speculations at rest, Taiwanese Labour Minister Hsu Ming-chun officially issued a statement last weekend denying that any such MoU has been signed between Taipei and New Delhi.
“In a press release, Hsu said Taipei had not signed an MOU with New Delhi to bring in migrant workers, adding that the issue was subject to continued evaluation regarding employment cooperation,” CNA reported. “Any claims about Taiwan seeking to open its doors to 100,000 Indian workers are ‘fake’, made by ‘ill-intentioned people’ to manipulate public opinion for electoral gains, Hsu said.”
Now, it will be only after the new president assumes office that one will get to know about the prospects of any such migrant mobility agreement being signed between India and Taiwan.
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