A collection of screenshots from LinkedIn search results show some of the 249 profiles identified as belonging to an unnamed Chinese cybergroup.
Multiple social media and national security experts have privately examined this finding and were dumbfounded that a professional cybergroup potentially organized by the Chinese state would have left such relatively obvious traces. But they were all in agreement that the three Facebook users and 249 profiles on LinkedIn are unmistakably linked.
The cybergroup’s use of simplified Chinese and the way in which the profiles were set up provide critical clues to their origin, according to an expert surnamed Chu, the executive director of a major social media marketing company in Taiwan, who wishes to remain anonymous. Chu said that LinkedIn has a very limited presence and user base in Taiwan, and the group’s extensive presence there suggests they are unlikely to be Taiwanese. Citing his knowledge of the industry, Chu said he does not know of any social media marketing firm in Taiwan—even those he knew that were hired by the KMT, that would have operated this same way this particular group did.
LinkedIn is known to be one of Beijing’s favorite playgrounds for conducting espionage and influence operations. Both U.S. and Germanintelligence agencies have documented numerous cases of suspected Chinese spies exploiting the networking site for intelligence purposes. Their favorite technique is to create mass fake accounts and identities—sometimes hundreds if not thousands of them—and use them to approach and recruit unsuspecting targets (often Western nationals) who would then leak secrets or become assets for Chinese intelligence handlers in the real world. The SSF was created in December 2015 as part of a massive military reorganization initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and it was made into an independent branch of the Chinese military that is now charged with conducting a wide range of operations including space, cyber, and electronic warfare. Citing a report by the U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye last year, Lin said that Chinese cyberespionage activities heated up in late 2018, as a number of major Chinese hacker groups were observed to have returned to active duty after a few years of being dormant during the army’s reorganization.
If Lin is correct, this would be the first confirmed case of China’s new cyberforce attempting to influence foreign elections. U.S. experts on the Chinese military previously warned that the reorganized SSF could become Beijing’s favorite tool to unleash a new generation of informational and psychological warfare against foreign adversaries, learning from Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
But another expert has a different assessment. A psychological operations officer serving with the Political Warfare Bureau under Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense who uses the pen name“Lieutenant Ho” believes this particular cybergroup was likely a private team contracted through a Chinese company rather than being a dedicated military or intelligence unit in itself—albeit with the Chinese government ultimately pulling the strings. “They put in little effort to clean up the digital traces after the job was done; this could suggest whoever contracted them in the first place didn’t give out such instructions, or maybe they never saw the need for doing so,” Ho said. “This could explain why they used Tencent as a cover on LinkedIn, because the name of a big Chinese company can allow them to fool people elsewhere.” This would not be the first time that Beijing has attempted to manipulate Taiwanese social media, Ho said. Though he cannot reveal his full name due to being in active service in Taiwan’s military, Ho has published articles in Taiwan’s the News Lens criticizing the passiveness and ineffectiveness of Taiwan’s defense against information and psychological warfare waged by China. Ho and his colleagues tracked down a number of Facebook pages and content farms made to look like Taiwanese ones but that were assessed to be operated by the Chinese Communist Party’s Publicity Department. These findings were never disclosed to the public by Taiwan’s high leadership even after they were duly reported within the system. Mysteriously, those Facebook pages soon changed talking points and partisan stance and looked nothing like they did before, Ho revealed in one article.
On Facebook and elsewhere, Han’s zealous followers are known to be extremely aggressive toward his opponents and critics. For example, a DPP legislator’s Facebook page was flooded with more than a million hate comments soon after she made a scathing remark about Han. During the 2018 campaign, whenever DPP’s Chen attempted to livestream on Facebook, as Han sometimes did, he was bombarded with hundreds of hate comments. Allegations abound that a number of Han’s fans were Chinese netizens or even Beijing’s paid trolls, but proving systematic interference beyond finding some random Chinese users has been a difficult task—until now.
But Lin, Ho, and other experts believe these are merely the tip of the iceberg in China’s massive interference operations in Taiwan’s local elections last year. They say there were many other groups, pages, content farms, and platforms out there beyond Facebook that Beijing used to propel Han to electoral success There is no evidence Han himself colluded with this group or any other. But he was certainly aware that his support online was somewhat mysterious. “I don’t know who they are, but I thank them for the support,” was Han’s standard response to the accusations that unknown digital forces possibly originating in China were driving his campaign and popularity.
Han Kuo-yu is officially in the race for the KMT’s presidential primary for 2020 election, where his main competitor is Terry Gou, Taiwan’s richest man and the owner of Foxconn, which manufactures iPhones in China for Apple. If he is successful in gaining the nomination, he will face off against DPP President Tsai Ing-wen in the general election next January. High-level U.S. officials have already publicly warned that China will again interfere, even specifically citing social media as a battleground. The question is: Will Taiwan be able to do anything about it?