Assessing China’s Cognitive Warfare against Taiwan on TikTok

In 2003, China first introduced the concept of “Three Warfare”—comprising psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare—into the “Political Work Guidelines of the People's Liberation Army (中国人民解放军政治工作条例).” As stipulated in Article 14, Item 18 of the Guidelines, public opinion warfare and psychological warfare were defined as components of wartime political work, reflecting the Chinese government's view at that time that information operations were essential tools to weaken the enemy during armed conflict.[1]

Two decades later, the rise of social media has transformed both China's concept and practice of information operations. Drawing lessons from the “color revolutions” in the Middle East and Central Asia, the concept of “cognitive warfare” began to emerge in China's military writings in the mid-2010s. This new vision highlights information operations against enemies during peacetime and to win without fighting. As explained by a People's Liberation Army (PLA) professor Zeng Huafeng (曾华锋)—author of Mind Superiority: Rules of Engagement in the Global Media Age and National Security Strategy (制脑权：全球媒体时代的战争法则与国家安全战略) and a leading theorist of cognitive warfare —China's information operations in the digital age aim to influence enemies' values, ideology, and beliefs, ultimately inducing them to abandon their chosen path of development.[2] In other words, Chinese cognitive warfare can be viewed as a non-kinetic offensive pursued during nominal peacetime.

Against this background, this report uses TikTok as a case study to assess the impact of the Chinese cognitive warfare on public opinion in Taiwan. TikTok is particularly suitable for this purpose, as its alleged ties to the Chinese government and its potentially manipulative algorithm have raised concerns about the platform's amplification of content aligned with Beijing's interests. These dynamics make TikTok an essential lens through which to analyze the impact of Chinese cognitive warfare.

TikTok has emerged as a critical battleground for China's cognitive warfare against Taiwan. A report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) of the Taiwanese government found that the number of “irregular accounts” (異常帳號) on TikTok increased from 255 to 4,371 between 2023 and 2024. This growth rate was the highest among all major social media platforms. In addition, the NSB discovered a 151% increase in “controversial information” (爭議訊息) on video-sharing platforms, with roughly one-fifth coming from TikTok.[3]

This NSB report may have even underestimated the prevalence of disinformation on TikTok before 2024. During the campaign season for the January 2024 presidential election, TikTok had already become a critical platform for information operations among various actors, with numerous deepfake videos aligned with the interests of different candidates.[4] However, the overall information space on TikTok seemed to work in Beijing's favor. Research by Taiwan AI Labs shows that the narratives on TikTok during the campaign season were predominantly positive toward China while negative toward Taiwan, the United States, and Japan.[5]

The surge in information operations on TikTok is particularly concerning given the platform's widespread popularity among younger generations in Taiwan. The 2024 Taiwan Internet Report (2024台灣網路報告) found that more than 60% of Taiwanese TikTok users were between the ages of 18 and 39.[6] Moreover, an Academia Sinica survey in 2023 found that Taiwanese under 18 were significantly exposed to TikTok, with approximately 44% of primary school students, 58% of middle school students, and 50% of high school students having accessed TikTok within the month preceding the survey.[7] TikTok's popularity among the young Taiwanese generation will only intensify the information battle on the platform in the future, making it imperative to study its impact on public opinion in Taiwan.

Two surveys conducted by Taiwanese think tanks specializing in Chinese cognitive warfare offer an initial insight into TikTok's influence on public opinion in Taiwan. The first survey, conducted in November 2024 by the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG), and the second, carried out in March 2025 by the Doublethink Lab, reveal two critical observations: the perceptions of TikTok users regarding the US government and Taiwan's democracy closely mirrored Chinese propaganda.[8]

Research by IORG and Doublethink Lab revealed that TikTok users held negative views on strengthening relations with the United States. Their perception closely reflected the Chinese government's long-played propaganda that building US-Taiwan ties would bring tremendous costs to Taiwan and that Taiwan was treated as a pawn by the Americans.

First, IORG's research showed that 41.5% of TikTok users in Taiwan believed that being pro-United States would lead to war between Taiwan and China, while only 31% of non-TikTok users held such a view.[9] This negative view reflected what the Chinese government wanted the Taiwanese to believe since the 1990s, when it began to frame Taiwan's efforts to forge closer Taiwan-US relations as pursuing Taiwan independence, or what they refer to as “rely on the United States to seek independence” (依美謀獨) nowadays.

Second, the Doublethink Lab's study demonstrated that 62% of active TikTok users agreed that “the United States attempts to push Taiwan into war.” While this figure is nearly identical to inactive TikTok users,[10] it is important to note that 17.1% of active TikTok users “strongly agree” with the statement, leading inactive TikTok users by 5.6 percentage points. Moreover, the same survey exhibited that active TikTok users were more likely to blame the Taiwanese and American governments for the rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. When asked who was responsible, 38.9% of active users pointed to China, while 35% blamed Taiwan, and 15.5% blamed the United States. In contrast, among inactive users, 51.8% held China responsible, compared to 29.4% for Taiwan and 10.2% for the United States.[11]

These figures are concerning, as TikTok users' perceptions of Taiwan's security environment appear to have been shaped in ways that contradict established facts. For one, US support for Taiwan has long been one of the most critical deterrents against a full-scale Chinese invasion. For another, Washington's longstanding policy toward the Taiwan Strait since the mid-1950s has been defensive-realist, aiming at denying a Chinese takeover of Taiwan rather than using the island to erode China's power.

Doublethink Lab's March 2025 opinion poll also suggests that TikTok users are more likely to view Taiwan's democracy in a negative light, to the extent that they fail to understand or value the systematic differences between Taiwan and China. This trend has emerged alongside the Chinese government's growing propaganda campaign criticizing Taiwan's democratic system since President Lai Ching-te's inauguration.[12]

The first indicator concerns the responses to the statement that the “current ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is no different from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Taiwan lacks freedom of speech.” The opinion poll shows that 46.9% of active TikTok users in Taiwan agree with the statement, which is 10.4 percentage points higher than that of inactive users.[13] This finding suggests that nearly half of active TikTok users hold a highly skeptical perception of Taiwan's democratic system, reflecting a weakened understanding of the systemic differences between Taiwan and China.

The second indicator concerns respondents' views on whether Taiwan's democratic system could be given up for the sake of cross-Strait peace. Doublethink Lab's opinion poll found that 30.3% of active users agreed with the statement, which is about seven percentage points higher than the percentage of inactive users.[14] This suggests that active TikTok users show a weaker appreciation for Taiwan's democratic system.

The third indicator concerns the respondents' reaction to the statement that “even if cross-strait unification occurs, it will not significantly change ordinary people's lives.” The survey shows that 45.2% of active TikTok users agree with the statement, dwarfing inactive users by 12 percentage points.[15] While the exact reason behind these TikTok users' agreement with this statement is unclear, it likely reflects either a belief that sustaining a democratic system or not does not matter to ordinary people or the perception that there is little difference in the level of democracy between Taiwan and China, as the previous two indicators suggest.

Nevertheless, the above findings do not suggest that TikTok has successfully altered the anti-China sentiment among the Taiwanese people. The Doublethink Lab's poll shows that nearly 90% of respondents, including active TikTok users,[16] hold negative views toward the Chinese government. This is consistent with the trend in Taiwan since mid-2019, when Beijing started cracking down on the democratic movements in Hong Kong. Opinion polls by My Formosa (美麗島電子報) consistently show that nearly 70% of Taiwanese have viewed the CCP negatively, while no more than 15% have viewed it positively, since.[17]

At the moment, it can be inferred that TikTok might have succeeded in shaping its Taiwanese users' perceptions about Taiwan's democracy only, but not the Chinese government. Doubts about the systematic differences between Taiwan and China stem less from improved views of the CCP than from dissatisfaction with Taiwan's own democracy.

There are a few critical caveats before fully accepting the above analyses, however. Simply comparing the perceptions between TikTok users and non-users might not present the whole picture.

First, to further examine TikTok's influence, it is essential to compare the perceptions of users across different social media platforms. Instagram, like TikTok, primarily features short videos, and both platforms may create an environment in which users with limited fact-checking ability are more easily influenced by emotionally charged content. If TikTok users prove to be more susceptible to Chinese propaganda than Instagram users, it would be critical to examine how TikTok's algorithms and recommendation systems lead to the spread of such narratives.

Second, neither the IORG nor the Doublethink Lab reports incorporated moderating variables such as party identification, nor did they consider differences in age or generational composition. To demonstrate that TikTok usage has an independent effect on its users' perceptions, further research should investigate, for example, whether users who identify with the ruling DPP also exhibit a greater acceptance of China's propaganda. It is very possible that the TikTok users most receptive to Chinese narratives disproportionately identify with Taiwan's opposition parties, meaning that their perceptions may stem as much from partisan predispositions as from exposure to TikTok content.

In addition, given TikTok's particular popularity among younger generations, it is also essential to examine whether younger users are more susceptible to Chinese propaganda. Older generations, having formed their political perceptions through more diverse experiences and information sources prior to the rise of TikTok, may differ in their information environment, which could partly account for the observed perceptual gaps across generations.

Third, TikTok's primary effect may lie in amplifying existing political divisions in Taiwan. As IORG's previous research has shown, Chinese media often use the words of Taiwanese politicians and media pundits for their propaganda.[18] TikTok is no exception: many accounts possibly linked to the Chinese government frequently edit and reuse the remarks by pro-China figures in Taiwan. In this way, TikTok serves as an accelerant for domestic political polarization, selectively amplifying voices already present in Taiwan's political discourse.

For example, since taking office in May 2024, President Lai Ching-te has been labelled by the opposition parties in Taiwan as authoritarian. From former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je's prosecution to Lai's 17 measures to resist Chinese infiltration,[19] Taiwan's opposition framed the ruling DPP as “Nazis,” “communists,” or “dictators.” Hence, TikTok's role in diminishing perceptions of the systematic differences between Taiwan and China may have been secondary rather than primary.

Finally, based on the above two points, TikTok's influence on Taiwanese users' perceptions should be neither overstated nor understated. While the platform may facilitate the spread of pro-China narratives in Taiwan's information space, the more significant threat to Taiwan's resilience comes from domestic politicians and media pundits who, whether intentionally or unintentionally, echo Chinese propaganda. Their statements provide CCP-controlled TikTok accounts with ready-made content to persuade Taiwanese with local voices, making the pro-Chinese narratives appear more credible to the target audience.

Two general conclusions can be made from the above analysis. First, TikTok users in Taiwan are more likely to be receptive to Chinese propaganda. China's cognitive warfare successfully manipulates users' perceptions in a way that challenges common sense, including their belief that Taiwan lacks freedom of speech and that closer Taiwan-US ties would lead to a war with China. To further determine whether these tendencies stem from TikTok's algorithms or from the short-video format itself, it is crucial to conduct comparative analyses with similar platforms such as Instagram. Second, TikTok's exact role in China's cognitive warfare merits further investigation. It is too early to conclude that the platform plays a primary role in shaping its users' views of Taiwan's domestic and international environments. Instead, TikTok's role may be secondary, for it is Taiwan's existing political divides that make Taiwanese perceptions susceptible to the Chinese influence in the first place.

The results are alarming nonetheless. A significant number of Taiwanese people have come to perceive their country's domestic and international environment in ways that align with the CCP's political agenda. In effect, the path that Taiwan has long emphasized to resist China's coercion—its democratic system and closer relations with the United States—is now being questioned by its own people under the influence of Chinese cognitive warfare. In this sense, the results illustrate precisely what the author of Mind Superiority described as China's effort to reshape its adversary's values, ideology, and beliefs—in this case Taiwan's—to induce it to abandon its chosen path of development.