Shen Boyang's Taipei Counterattack! He Predicted It Two Years Ago: From Researching China to Being Wanted, Deeply Hit by Douyin's Cognitive Warfare — How Should Taiwanese Judge?

This episode invites Legislator Puma Shen to review his warnings from two years ago regarding China's cognitive warfare and the threat of TikTok. The interview delves deeply into how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) utilizes multilingual studios and overseas influencers to wage information warfare, the dilemma faced by moderate voters influenced by non-Blue, non-Green third-party forces, and Taiwan's coping strategies in preventing cognitive warfare, dealing with platform localization, and disrupting user experience.

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Actually, our channel interviewed Puma Shen—Teacher Puma—over three years ago, before he was even a legislator. At that time, he wasn't even a legislator yet, and I felt that this scholar and expert, including Black Bear Academy, was truly, truly interesting. We did an interview back then, and it got around 300,000 to 400,000 views. Then, in his second year when he became a newly elected legislator, we invited him for an interview again to talk about his views on being a legislator, state security (MSS), and even whether there were any solutions in other aspects. We all know he started out as an expert in cognitive warfare; the moment we got to know him was largely from that perspective across the political spectrum. He proposed many methods and solutions back then, but unfortunately, that video sank without a trace! The view count was very, very low. So, we all know Puma Shen; he is an all-around warrior. Not only is he deeply knowledgeable about what we traditionally recognize as a wanted criminal by China, CCP issues, and infiltration, but he also has visions for Taiwan, including child-rearing, human rights, planning and construction for the Taipei City government, and future visions to elevate Taiwan's capital to the next level—so, so, so many things. Therefore, I call him an all-around warrior. As for things he doesn't understand, he is also very modest in asking others for advice or learning from them. So, in this video, I would like to share with everyone once again how he viewed the TikTok app back then. TikTok, as a platform operated by an enemy state, poses a threat to our national security. I think the best way to solve this is probably by disrupting the user experience. Really, for supporters of things like the TPP, if you ask them if they want to become Chinese citizens, they don't want to. In this aspect, I would say there is progress, but...

Hello everyone, I'm Ba Jiu. Today we've invited Professor Puma, our newly elected legislator, to talk about what issues he cares about most after entering Parliament. I think it breaks down into a few areas. Human rights issues are definitely a must, and another is national security. National security can also be divided into several blocks. If it relates to Chinese infiltration today, it might lean more toward things like the Anti-Infiltration Act. If it concerns the digital world, such as the cognitive warfare everyone is familiar with, it might involve the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, the NCC, and so on. This is also a direction I might pursue. For us, we now need to prepare for any form of offense, so how we help our soldiers get ready I think is also a very important matter. This election brought me into contact with many people. Their disdain for the CCP's cognitive warfare is growing stronger, and they increasingly feel that this is simply a fake issue. How do you feel about this yourself, given your work at the Kuroshio Academy? I feel it getting stronger and stronger, especially over the past two years. And I think a big reason for this is that China is uniquely pushing this narrative. A friend of mine works in child welfare, right, and even if they enter the Legislative Yuan, they won't be attacked with things like 'you only understand child welfare, you only know how to do child welfare and nothing else.' They definitely won't be attacked because their expertise is right there. But you'll find that anyone who talks about China is bound to be slapped with a charge called 'you only know how to resist China and protect Taiwan.' Right, meaning you only ever work on China-related issues. China probably started heavily promoting this narrative about two years ago, specifically targeting anyone studying China by saying, 'You only study China, you don't care about anything else.' Actually, I think this is also a charge they pinned on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). For example, in the last legislative session there were over 130 bills, and bills related to resisting China and protecting Taiwan probably not a single one even passed. So many bills were dealing with other matters, yet people were accused of only knowing how to resist China and protect Taiwan. This is actually a form of cognitive warfare. They want to brainwash everyone into thinking that you only talk about Chinese issues and nothing else. Yet, as it happens, China is currently our most important issue. Looking at it from my own perspective, would you say this has been successful? Extremely successful, I'd say. But I think this success has two elements. We often talk about how China floods us with garbage information, but it doesn't necessarily generate an impact in Taiwan unless someone in Taiwan echoes it. If no one in Taiwan echoes it, it's not a huge problem for us. But the biggest problem right now is that the Kuomintang (KMT) has consistently been echoing China's narrative. Sometimes it's not a huge problem because KMT supporters sometimes already think that way anyway, and they won't change their minds because of Chinese operations. So within the KMT there are the true blue camp and those leaning a bit red, and they actually don't change much. Therefore, for us, the people we truly want to persuade should be the swing voters, those who are a bit indifferent to politics. We hope they will attach importance to Chinese issues because, after all, to defend our country, we can't have just one political party working on this; it should be something everyone does across party lines. People who don't care about politics are precisely the ones we need to persuade. Why has it become increasingly difficult in recent years? It's because middle-of-the-road voters are starting to have other choices—options outside of the blue and green camps. So when they choose an option outside of the blue and green, they end up listening to what these non-blue/green politicians have to say. And if these non-blue/green politicians say things similar to what China says, such as 'you only know how to resist China and protect Taiwan,' and 'you don't care about anything else at all,' or 'you say China is terrible, but I think the US has problems too; the US and China both have their own problems and we should keep an equidistant stance'—when they have this third option, it means that before we even finish persuading them, they are being pulled in the opposite direction by another force. That's why I say the past two years have been quite tough.

Regarding the incident of Wang Zhian coming to Taiwan, I had actually been following him for two or three years, back on Twitter before he started his YouTube channel. Even then, I found him to be a very strange person. I think his trip to Taiwan was perhaps half a failure and half a success, but in the broader so-called overseas Chinese market, he is very successful. When I went to Europe and America last year, I chatted with some local so-called Chinese people, and yes, many of them were his fans and supporters. Really, there are quite a few in Europe, and even some big influencers are his fans. Did he come to see you? He didn't. Although there is no clear, public evidence that he is an agent of the CCP, I think this kind of propaganda comes in different forms. Whether you are a 'self-funded' agent (ziganwu) who didn't receive money, or you are doing it voluntarily without payment, what impact do you think his packaging has on our democratic world in Taiwan, or even on the entire anti-CCP society? I think, to some extent, people sometimes wonder, 'Could he be sent by China?' Or, because he actually returned to China in the meantime—and to me, for a so-called rebel to return to China is a really dangerous thing—especially since he has already been identified by the authorities, the fact that he was able to return to China and then come back out again, I think that is a bit incredible. But I think we must be cautious and, of course, speak only based on the evidence we have. Conversely, we should also realize that even if he isn't, even if he has absolutely no relationship with the Chinese authorities today and is not their propaganda agent, if I were China, I would definitely want to utilize him because he perfectly fits the narrative China wants to set. Yes, you might criticize our government sometimes, but at critical moments, you are actually transmitting a different kind of ideology. To me, I feel this person is someone who can be utilized. It's like when people were wondering about Hong Kongers coming to Taiwan—some are truly anti-CCP and really want to do something, so how do I know if they are spies? But the same question applies: regardless of whether they are or not, China will try to utilize them. Like Wang Zhian, even if he is completely not one, he now fits China's narrative. If it were me, I would want to contact him, though whether that contact would be successful or not, I don't know. But in any case, in the theory of cognitive warfare, there is a very harsh term that everyone should be aware of. I am not targeting him, but there is a harsh term called 'useful idiots.' I don't mean he is an idiot, but in our research, there is a group of people who may have no relationship with the authorities, yet their actions perfectly align with what the authorities want to achieve. This is very similar to the 'anti-war' scholars in Taiwan. They say, 'I am a leftist, I am anti-war, and I hope to defeat American imperialism.' Honestly, China might have nothing to do with them, but they perfectly meet China's requirements. If I were China, I would absolutely love these people. I think Wang Zhian might have the same questions. When he came to Taiwan, he was contacting people everywhere. They also sent me an invitation to their program, asking if I wanted to discuss something or other, but I didn't agree because I was really busy at the time. But to me, look at China—they now have something called the 'Multilingual Studio,' which started in 2023, using various different languages. This Multilingual Studio has been cultivating different influencers around the world since 2023 and has already reached 100 million in reach. These different influencers are divided into four categories, such as those specializing in travel, but at critical moments, they are to speak up for China. There are also those who criticize China, but at critical moments, they speak up for it. This is in their public documents, telling you that they are cultivating these various types of influencers around the world. So, truthfully, many people fit this setting. Whether he is one, we will never know, but even if he isn't, China might still want to do something. Yes, for example, he has also been very active on Twitter recently.

Well, if it were me, of course I would want to go in and help amplify it for him, help forward it. If today he says some things unfavorable to Taiwan, saying oh Taiwan is suppressing freedom of speech, and then mainland Chinese web dramas come in and help amplify his speech, wouldn't he become a useful idiot?

How does the teacher think the CCP's cognitive warfare this year differs from last year? I think the difference is that amplification is becoming more and more prominent, because China also knows that it cannot manufacture things on its own as polished, and it still might not understand Taiwan's local customs and social climate well enough. For example, today the Kuomintang happens to attack the Democratic Progressive Party on specific issues—hey, and the attacks are quite on point—so China immediately jumps in to help amplify them. Alright, originally the Kuomintang's reach might have been only 300,000 or 400,000, but China boosts it to 2 million or 3 million. I think this is currently one of China's main tactics. But returning to a very important point you just mentioned, the opposition party indeed has the right to criticize the ruling party, and some of their criticisms are even correct. Therefore, if you didn't do a good job, you naturally deserve to be criticized. So how should we respond? There are two approaches. One approach is that, regardless of whether China wants to amplify it or not, yes, we first respond directly. Hey, admit the things that weren't done well, and then discuss how we should modify and correct them. I think this is what the ruling party should be doing in the first place. Furthermore, at what point should you tell people that there is Chinese internet army manipulation? Actually, I don't think you need to tell everyone about every single thing. Sometimes, after you respond directly and it's over, everyone just realizes, oh, so that's how it is, indeed it wasn't done well, and now we are improving—how are we improving? Oh, perhaps a month from now, please come and re-evaluate us. Hey, once it ends like this, you don't necessarily have to talk about China's operations. Um, but sometimes China's operation is purely fabricated out of thin air. Oh, for example, today they attack you by claiming that the entire Democratic Progressive Party is corrupt—let's say something like that. Then TikTok is filled with it. No matter how much you come out and clarify by saying we aren't, debating here and saying no, we currently have no corruption cases? Right, people aren't willing to listen. At this moment, you must tell everyone that this is truly a massive operation by China, and furthermore, simply informing the public is not enough; you actually have to find a way to block this operation. Because if you don't block it, it blankets the sky and covers the earth. I have genuinely met many young people who then come to leave comments on my page saying, you Democratic Progressive Party are just corrupt, and I also know TikTok is brainwashing people with this stuff, so I would tell them: ah, why don't you tell me a recent corruption case? I will tell you, hey, how we resolved it. And doing so also demonstrates our attitude toward the matter of corruption. He mentioned A-bian [Chen Shui-bian] to me; at first he couldn't come up with any case, and then later he told me A-bian, so I thought this timeframe is already a bit long, right, and coincidentally I happen to be particularly knowledgeable about the A-bian case. I think this is the success of brainwashing, which is continuously using this kind of uh rapid method to tell everyone, hey, there is some problem right here, and this problem hasn't been solved, so yada yada. This mechanism, I think, has been getting stronger recently. In the past, the problem wasn't as big because Facebook and YouTube served as uh at least not Chinese platforms, right? They would still more or less consistently block certain accounts and so on. Although I must say, it's getting almost impossible to stop now; look, YouTube told me they can hardly stop it anymore, and YouTube is currently deleting 200 channels a day.

With so many Chinese channels, deleting 200 a day—not videos, but channels—so 200 or 300 channels a day, they say their deletion speed simply cannot keep up with the speed at which China generates new channels. So you can imagine, for people like us working this hard, having to record and edit, they just drop 200 a day like that, and you simply cannot block them all. But at least they are still foreign platforms, and they are making an effort to block this matter. However, when more and more people use TikTok, that is their platform; whatever they decide to throw out, they decide. To us, this is as if China is directly running an official channel of theirs right here on our television channels, and everyone loves watching it because it's filled with singing and dancing, but political messages are smuggled in from time to time. I think this is not just about exposing it and telling people; the key point is that you must block it at the very first moment. If you don't block it in time, once everyone has already been brainwashed, and then you turn around and tell people, ah, this is China's cognitive warfare, please pay attention, it will have zero effect.

But how do you think we can block TikTok? For my own YouTube Shorts, I might get one or two million views, but the moment I post them to TikTok, they get 30,000 or 50,000 views; it directly throttles the traffic and blocks it so no one can see it. So, how do we block it on the TikTok platform in the first place? There are many ways to do it. Of course, let's start with the most basic approach: since TikTok is a platform operated by a hostile nation, it poses a threat to our national security. Therefore, in theory, you should at least require it to be subject to our laws, which means it needs to have a local presence. There are two types of local presence: one is for them to set up a branch or subsidiary here and be subject to our legal regulations; the other is a partial presence, meaning they at least have a point of contact where we can report issues, saying, 'Hey, we found this, please handle it.' That's one way. But you'll find that, actually, this year they didn't have a point of contact in Taiwan. They had one in Singapore.

Actually, this statement is a bit tricky, because they did find a PR firm in Taiwan to act as a point of contact. Yes, they were approached before. Right, and we won't mention which PR firm it was. Indeed, we did report some accounts that were spreading misinformation to them. They received the reports and deleted those accounts. But when did they delete them? Only after the election. There's just no way around it; it means that even if they have a point of contact, and even if they did handle it, they only did so after the election, which means it was completely meaningless to us. Exactly. And even if they were fully established here today and had a point of contact, I suspect the same thing would happen, so local presence cannot fully solve the problem; it can only at least bring things to light. If they could fully establish themselves and let us regulate them legally, we could at least tell them that when they are disseminating content, they need to ensure fairness, or do this or that—there would be some legal oversight. But I think that's all beside the point, because the bottom line is, if we go to Shanghai or Singapore today and say, 'Hey, we want you to establish a local presence,' they simply won't listen to you. They can just ignore you.

Because even if you make it impossible for them to be listed in Taiwan today, people can still circumvent the firewall and download it anyway. So I think everyone needs to think in reverse; it's not about discussing things with TikTok, because honestly, they have too many ways to circumvent, and local presence is only a half-measure. I think the best solution should be to degrade the user experience. That is to say, since they are using this as a tool for cognitive warfare, what they want most is for young people to engage with it, and young people will only keep using it if the user experience is good. If they are using TikTok Shop to buy things, or if everyone is watching videos, the videos have to be smooth; you can't be scrolling and have it suddenly lag. So I have always felt that the best way is actually in Taiwan, we need to make their user experience different. If they refuse to talk to us about local presence, we should make their user experience change. The details of how to do this have to do with bandwidth and so on. But everyone will definitely have concerns, saying, 'Can I directly restrict their traffic or their bandwidth?'

In theory, you must have legal authorization. So I think a better approach is not to do that, but for us to explicitly list and discuss it, saying: suppose a social media company is willing to discuss cooperation with us in Taiwan, and it can achieve so-called media fairness and so on, then when it uses this bandwidth, it will naturally have a faster lane. That is, it has commercial interests, and our bandwidth providers can be paid by them, giving them a faster lane. But if there's a bunch of scams on it and you don't handle them, then I'm sorry, you must be subject to restrictions before you handle them. In that case, the user experience for everyone will actually get worse. Okay, so now you can establish a local presence; if you do, you must be subject to the regulation of our laws in Taiwan. If we don't do this now, it will truly be a massive problem. Even if it's determined that you might suffer in terms of public opinion, the public opinion will be terrible anyway. Yes, everyone will definitely say, just like the recent NCC incident, that even though it's actually a very simple matter, they will insist on framing it as you controlling freedom of speech.

But what I want to tell everyone is that China is the biggest fraud syndicate. It has been constantly brainwashing us, and it always wants to change Taiwan's public opinion, because once public opinion changes, that is when it can launch an attack. So I think for everyone, indeed, public opinion will certainly say that you are restricting freedom of speech or something. But I think this is the responsibility of the ruling party; we can't always just blame everything on people attacking us, but rather say that we really need to properly explain things to the public. The explanations before were not enough, so now we will explain even more. I think even if we might have relative countermeasures this year, next year they might upgrade again. That is definitely how it goes—as virtue rises one foot, vice rises ten. So how on earth do we cultivate a core value, or do we have the ability to fight back, to let us infiltrate them, or whatever? Theoretically, of course, that's possible, but because their internet has a firewall, that is the most troublesome part. Their wall exists right from where the submarine cables enter, so sending data in is an extremely difficult task.

I have met many overseas human rights groups that just keep trying to send correct information into China, because you aren't even fighting them—simply throwing correct information in throws them into complete chaos. Because they tell lies, but when you want to send correct information in, first of all, it's not easy because they have a wall, an internet firewall. Second, and more importantly, when you send important information in, the person who receives it will definitely want to talk about it further and pass it on to others, but that person's risk emerges because they might get caught or even face mortal danger. So many people will say, if you do this, since they are a dictatorship, you are creating a high moral hazard inside. That is why I think that if we are going to discuss this matter globally today, China's internet army, after all, is still primarily the People's Liberation Army. Since this is an action carried out by the PLA, what we in Taiwan should be responding with is national defense. It is actually something like political warfare and so on, or cyber electromagnetic warfare—though cyber electromagnetic warfare leans more toward hacking—but this is the Ministry of National Defense, something our soldiers should directly face.

To what extent they are capable of operating, we should openly announce to the general public, and to what extent we should be capable of operating. To me, this is fundamentally no different from a state of war. If today we can only retreat and still say, "Well, this should be handled by the Ministry of Justice, this should be handled by the NCC, oh, this should be handled by the Mainland Affairs Council," their capacity is simply insufficient, because the opponent is fighting you using combat specifications, while you are just over here saying, "Hey, this is a rumor about the Ministry of Agriculture, please have the Ministry of Agriculture come out and explain." How can they respond to the dissemination of rumors and conspiracies conducted at the level of warfare? This public opinion warfare, this information warfare, is not something they can handle. So, does the teacher feel that over the past few years, we Taiwanese have become more united or more divided? I think there is a very special point. I still think there is progress. Why do I say this? Because in the past, truthfully, if you asked everyone whether they were Chinese or Taiwanese, many people couldn't answer well. Probably because, after all, many people felt, hey, we also share Chinese culture, and so on and so forth.

But now when you ask everyone whether you are Chinese or Taiwanese, more and more people say they are Taiwanese, and those who say they are both Chinese and Taiwanese are truly very, very few. But at least in the era I grew up in, many people still called themselves Chinese. So just for this step alone, I think we have made good progress. I can say that at least 80% of people in Taiwan, if you ask them whether they want to become a part of China, do not want to. Even if, honestly speaking, for supporters of the Taiwan People's Party, they might often have some opinions about me. But I believe that if you ask TPP supporters whether they want to become part of China, they don't want to either. In this regard, I would say there is progress. But you see, not wanting to become a part of China and being Taiwanese is one thing, while feeling whether the country of China is truly hostile to us or not, and how evil China really is, are two different matters. The current division in Taiwan is just what you asked about in the upper layer—that second tier where many people think China is not a threat, it's fine, wouldn't it be better to just negotiate nicely with them? And isn't America just as evil? Isn't America also going to sacrifice us? This equilateral triangle is about to emerge, where clearly the United States has not said it wants to annex us, while China has said it wants to annex us, but they always maintain this narrative.

This one is actually divergent, and this divergence is getting more and more serious. Therefore, what China primarily pushes—since it already knows that persuading Taiwanese people to become Chinese through cultural aspects is becoming less and less feasible, and talking about 'two sides of the strait are one family' has less and less market. Although some people still talk about it, if you talk about how the US and Japan are actually very bad, plus, uh, I should say in 2023 there was additionally India telling you that India is also bad, meaning that these countries are actually in a mess, and then wanting to sacrifice Taiwan, etc.—this narrative is getting stronger, while Taiwan's side is becoming very divided. So, when we tell everyone today that we don't want to be Chinese, it's very easy for everyone. But needless to say, if you say you don't want to be Chinese right now, China is already brainwashing us, trying to turn us into Chinese. Many people think, is it that exaggerated? It's fine, right? Now we are stuck here. So there is progress, but there are also places of regression. So thank you very much to Teacher Puma for coming here today to hold a class and lecture for everyone. And if everyone is interested and has the opportunity, go check out more of the courses from Kuroshio Academy, right? Yes, that's right. What are we promoting recently? We are recently promoting map reading, and also our open-source intelligence collection course, which is just as popular as before, running every month, so everyone is welcome to come and learn open-source intelligence collection.