American Thought Leaders - Why Taiwan is Fighting the World’s Largest Cyber War | Wang Ting-yu

Episode Date: July 25, 2026

🔥Check out Immersed and invest in the future of AI-powered spatial computing. Round closes July 30:https://ept.ms/4fY9c4bTaiwan faces millions of cyberattacks and intrusion attempts every day, as well as a dizzying onslaught of disinformation from Beijing.There are few people who understand what Taiwan is really up against better than Taiwanese legislator Wang Ting-yu, a leader in the Taiwanese Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.He’s been sanctioned three times by Beijing and repeatedly threatened for speaking out.In this episode, he reveals Taiwan’s three-step strategy to withstand the Chinese Communist Party’s psychological onslaught.Winning the battle for truth, he believes, is imperative to preserving the life of any democratic nation.And he also breaks down the importance of this tiny island nation. Taiwan produces two-thirds of the world’s semiconductors—and nearly all of the advanced ones—but its importance stretches far beyond this single product. Wang details Taiwan’s strategic position, its role in critical supply chains, and its role as a frontier of human freedom.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Every day when we had our breakfast in the morning, we can hear a sound like noise, even my son. He would say, oh, PLA come to harass again. We are under this kind of threat for decades. It's our daily life. There are few people who understand what Taiwan is really up against better than Wang Ting You, a leader in the Taiwanese Parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.

In this episode, Wang breaks down how the CCP uses great Rayzone tactics and psychological warfare to destabilize Taiwan. They imposed the sanctions on me three times. They even sent gangsters to harass me and my family. My kids' life was in danger. The full-armed policemen stand in front of my house for a long time. That's a price. When you try to do something right, it's never an easy thing.

This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yankeelek. Legislator Wang Tingu, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. It's my honor to have this opportunity with you. So you've been repeatedly the chair of the Taiwan's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. And you've watched Beijing apply pressure from many different angles onto your country. military exercises, cognitive warfare, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion. You've talked about all these things. Among these methods, what do you think is the most dangerous?

I always use an example of my family. When my son, when he was three years old, now he is 24. Every day when we had our breakfast in the morning, we can hear the thunder-like noise. the engines started air fighters. Even my son, when he was two, three years old, he would say, oh, PLA come to harass again. We are under this kind of threat for decades. It's our daily life.

So what is the most dangerous threat? Air fighters, destroyers, missiles, drones, those kind of military, of course, is real and very, you know, disturbing. However, those disinformation from inside. Our psychological defense line is the most important things. Those autocracy, communism, they're always using fake news, disinformation,

those twisted news polluted by their intention to penetrate your society, Make your younger generation through those TikToks, something like that, through some kind of social media, to try to divide your society. Sometimes we just support different parties. But through those disinformation, people don't trust your government. That kind of disinformation sabotage this society. Divide your society into pieces, I think it's the most dangerous.

thing caused by China Communist. I think probably Americans and Canadians, which is I am Canadian, could learn a lot from this. Democracy, our society is an open society. We value freedom of speech. We value diversification. That's our advantage. But sometimes those autocracies, such like

Iran, China, North Korea, they control all the concept, control all the speech, control all the right. So when they try to influence your society, Canada or United States or Taiwan, we are democracy. People's votes going to influence your policy making process. So try to influence your cognition. then you can influence your behavior to vote. So they try to influence your awareness. They become racism, become this color people, had white people.

Democrats had Republican in Taiwan. In the past, it's just you support different party. No big deal. We are friends, we are families, we are neighbors. But now, we have friends. hat each other. So how to make your people realize what is right, what is wrong? It's the most challenging situation to the democracy society. This is one of the things that at epoch times, this is actually our purpose to try to present good, clear information to the people in whatever

country we're operating in. Yes. Now, epoch time, you provide a clean, Internet. Information comes from different kinds of sources. It's okay. Sometimes you look from this angle, I look from that angle. We are different. We don't have to agree with each other, but we can work together. We can get along with each other. But what is a twist? Twist information or disinformation? Fact. Or try to exaggerate the difference, make different. difference become dispute, make dispute become conflict. For example, we mentioned a military corruption, military threat. So we need modern equipment, we need all kinds of major battle tank. We need a switchblade, a drone, something like that. But if your awareness twisted by those disinformation, you don't trust your, you don't

loyal to your own country. You worry about the soldier next to you, we have different races, we support different parties, I don't have to fight for you. In the past, we fight for our country, we defend our families, but now those twist information, those disinformation, influence your recognition. You think we are from different parties, we hate each other. And even you have the modern equipment, that kind of soldiers cannot defend your country. In school, on the street, if people lose the trust to the system,

those the trust to the democracy, and lost the love to this country, to this land, just because of disinformation. Even you have millions of soldiers. You have thousands of policemen, you cannot keep your society stick together. I'm not talking about purified information. I try to remind the democracy, the modern world, how to educate our next generation, how to help our civilians, our people, to distinguish what is correct. This information provided by CCTV.

This information provided by foreign government, and especially its autocracy government. We need to let our people realize to distinguish the background of all kinds information. So what you're talking about is an education for people to be able to have critical thinking and be able to understand the value of different kinds of information. Yeah. Now, technology improved a lot. Deep fact through AI, young, I can even create your image, your voice, to speak the most terrible words you cannot imagine through technology. So how to distinguish?

It's real, I think it's quite important. Not only to our generation, this adult, our next generation. And a lot of fraud happened by this kind of information. A lot of countries on the street become a chaos, try to attack each other because of this kind information. So if millions people think it's true, but actually it's both, That will be a problem. In Taiwan, during COVID-19, our former Prime Minister, Suzen-Chang,

he built a SOP. We call three steps. First, once disinformation occurred, those ministries related to this disinformation, you have to respond it within 60 minutes. If you're slower than 60 minutes, this disinformation spread around, the damage happened. If one disinformation occurred,

ministry, administration, need to respond it within 60 minutes. Second, the response to provide correct information must be humorous, must be fun. Because our research, our study shows to spread the information, if it's funny, that go faster. So, and the third thing, you need to locate the origin where the disinformation, the very first moment occurred. Before that, we need to verify what is disinformation

we need to deal with. That's the key. First, this disinformation most, be fake. The second one, it must damage public interest. Third, must be intentionally. Then we go through this through procedure. So during COVID-19, there is a disinformation occurred almost at the same time in Japan, in United States and in Taiwan. They say the toilet paper runs out in a convenience store. So people watch this information. information come. They rush and go to the supermarket, try to grab as much as possible,

the toilet paper. It's disinformation, damage public interest. And this information comes from China. So my government do the response. They draw a picture, a photo, showing a cartoon person, and lean on the window, showing the buttocks. Say, how many buttocks you have. You don't need that much toilet paper. And this picture is very funny. So spread three times faster than the disinformation, then ease this tension.

Then locate the original information comes from China. So we need to deal with this carefully. We don't want to damage our freedom. So we don't want to restrain people's freedom of speech. So we need to deal with the real disinformation based on according to law and through these three procedures and response as fast as possible. And after we ease the tension caused by disinformation,

then we try to locate where is from. from and how to deal with that. So Taiwan, we have an old saying, if you get sick longer enough, you can be a good doctor. So Taiwan, we are the world number one under cyber attack disinformation. We are number one. Every day, the cyber attack malware around 2.5 million times per hour, every day. So we are under cyber attack severely. So as a survivor, we know how to deal with that.

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because they have some agenda, right? And then that will undermine a genuine effort like yours because people say, oh, that's just the government doing its own disinformation. Right? You see, it's a, I find this a very difficult question because you're absolutely right. Those tools of these farms and all of that,

very negative impact on societies and very divisive like you explained. And at the same time, I worry that our own governments learn from that, the bad lesson in many cases, right? Then really no one knows what's true or not. Sometimes the world is not black.

and white. It's not easy to tell what is true, what is false. I agree with that. That's why I think you have to decide, well, I find this to be an honest source of information, right? This is why we're trying, that's our effort to be an honest source of information that anybody can come to and try. And, you know, of course, it's our perspective. Every source of information has some viewpoint, right? You have done a lot of contribution to this issue, but it cannot depend on one media. Of course. It depends on everyone.

So my feeling is, you know, sometimes disinformation causing damage more serious than autocracy in democracy country. Why? Because democracy country, we have parties, different parties. So sometimes this disinformation damage that party. Your opposite party, do you have that kind of courage to say, no, it's not right? That's right. Or this disinformation damage my competitors.

So try to exaggerate it, try to make worse. So in a democracy society, we have a mechanism. mechanism, check and balance. Administration need to be check and balanced by representative mechanism, representative branches. So executive branches, you cannot do whatever you want. You need to get your budget,

your law passed by people elected representatives, check and balance. And this competition, try to win the votes, the votes from people. And autocracy, they don't have this. Xi Jinping is a super king of China, whatever he said. So, in open society, in democracy, because we have party competition. So when this information occurred, especially related to government, related to political project, or related to maybe ethic, racist.

Sometimes this party can get advantage from that kind of disinformation. Then what's your choice? To disclose you this is disinformation or try to help the disinformation to destroy your competitors. It's not easy. And not only in the States, but also in time. but also in Taiwan. We are facing this kind of thing.

You're saying you have to do the moral thing. You're saying you have to practice your morality. Yeah. And I do believe democracy is the best system we have. You know, there's, I think it was Winston Churchill that said it's a democracy is a terrible system except for all the other systems. Yes. Something like that.

I hope I got it right. There is not perfect system. But the democracy system. system can let people make decisions on your own. You are free, based on knowledge, information you have. That's why CCP and all the autocracy countries try to pollute your information system. They think that's the best strategy to counter democracy.

And democracy can help people can heal people on their own because there is disinformation, then the correct information occurred at the same time, because it's democracy. Everybody can say anything you want. When somebody says something terrible, when some media provide, you know, stupid news, then some media, like your media, like Epic Times,

you can provide your country, information. Then who is the judge? People. I have 100% freedom access to get all different kind of information. Then I can do my own judgment. And autocracy is the information you can only have is your king allow you to read. You don't have opportunity to make your own judgment. And if we can make our own judgment, even this system full of chaos. compared with the other system, it's still the best way we can live. There's been many ways in which the Chinese Communist Party has kind of pushed itself into Taiwanese society, including even owning some of the media, or having a blood of control over some of the media here.

Right? So there's also that aspect. It's not just social media. There's kind of deep connections. that it's developed? Some media has the title of media, but it's kind of propaganda for some certain entity. And, you know, sometimes we don't like communism. They are willing to spend a bunch of money to damage the other country, but they don't want to use that kind of money

to help their own people as braids. health care, something like that. Why? Because stay in power is the most important thing for autocracy. Democracy is how to keep your people happy is the most important thing. Try to please all kinds of voters. Try to help my communities because I need your votes next time. So it's different philosophy.

Autocracy, try to keep himself, stay in power, no matter how many lives sacrificed. No matter the economy going to face a recession, no, I need to spend the money to protect my own power. Sabotage, my threats, government, try to divide the United States, make their society in chaos, because then I can I can protect my position, my power. And inside that system in China, for example, no one dared to provide second opinion to your leaders. Everyone try to guess what you want. I want to please you.

I won't provide the answer you want because if I dare to provide true answer or a second opinion, I'm not only risking my career life, I'm risking my real life. So in that kind of system, everyone tried to please the king, the superpower. And people can be sacrificed. Economy can be sacrificed. Social welfare can be sacrificed. So they are willing to using money, using their budget, to causing trouble to the other country.

But democracy is not that way. If you are city councilmen, you are a federal congressman, or like me, I'm a legislator, the only thing I think that my top priority is to make my people live in happiness. They need job. They need bridge across the river. They need good environment in school. They need their country to be protected. So that's why I wonder some of my colleagues,

so pro-China, they try to cut our self-defense budget. People don't like that. We try to realize what people want. They want their kids, their grandson, still has a freedom to make their own choice. That's the core spirit. That's the core spirit of democracy. Not try to please someone higher than you.

Not try to make your supervisor happy. Not try to make your own wealthy or make your own life better. No. Democracy, the true spirit, is when you become a public servant, serve your public, make your people in happy, safe life, and keep this kind of happiness to next generation. That's how we do things in Taiwan. You mentioned this defense budget that was passed recently,

and it's a lot lower than maybe expected. So explain to me more about that situation and the impact of that on the relationship with the United States. We need to talk about this from a bigger picture. Since 2013, Xi Jinping become China leaders, the president of CCP. He increased investment in military expense. Every year, increased 7%. In 2026, China, their expense in military affairs is beyond 1 trillion. trillion US dollars. It's huge money. And they build destroyers, amphibious,

all kinds aircraft, missiles. And Taiwan is a frontier. We are under this kind of giant threat. And Taiwan is not the only one. When China keeps, uh, increase their expense in military budget and those military activities, Great Zone Corruption, Toowo, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and February 2025, and February 2026. China even sent their destroyers to Australia, have live fire exercise over there. So it's aggressive, provocative, and they try to create their own new new news. They don't follow all kinds of international regulation. They don't respect international law.

They don't respect sovereignty owned by different countries. They enter Philippines territory water, and they keep harass Taiwan territory water, and they send their aircraft to harass Japan's their air, their sky. So this kind of threat keep increasing. My personal belief is to protect my country is our own responsibilities. No one should rely your families on somebody else's shoulder. It's our own responsibilities.

However, if you realize the value and importance of Taiwan, give Taiwan's hand, is helping the world. If you look at the map, Taiwan is a third. is the center of First Island chain. It's strategic importance. Whoever have Taiwan can control Japan. Whoever control Taiwan can control the West Pacific and the Philippine Sea. If CCP occupied Taiwan, Guan Island, Okinawa will be no importance. United States front need to move their Guan Island defense line backward to Hawaii. So Taiwan, very important strategic position.

All the vital transportation to Japan go through Taiwan. And the cargo ship in the world, 51% go through Taiwan. So once- The Taiwan straight. Yeah, that's right. So once Taiwan's trade occurred military conflict, it's not only damaging Taiwan, it's going to destroy global economy. So this is the first importance.

Second, Taiwan play very critical, very important vital role in supply chain, not only semiconductors. Of course, advanced chips, AI chips, Taiwan almost produced 100%. The whole world advanced chip, 96% produced here from Taiwan. And the average chips, average semiconductors, 60% manufacturers here, local in Taiwan. Not only that, if you look at all kinds of machinery, precision machine, and low orbit component, even Tesla, without Taiwan, cannot run. So Taiwan has played very important role in global supply chain, and if you want something reliable, without China factor, the portion will be higher.

So to defend my own country, to protect my family is our own responsibilities. But if you realize the importance of Taiwan, helping Taiwan is not only helping Taiwanese people, these nice people, but help the world. TSM is a famous factory now. Some people think, oh, TSM make too much money. But TSM is provide fundamental chips, and Taiwan, we are good at that. Once Taiwan TSM make $1 in Taiwan create $3.6 dollars in United States,

because TSM lost chips, when we, we transport those chips to United States, it becomes some kind of final goods, become refrigerator, washing machine, satellite, aviation equipment, toys, all the tools need chips. And when Taiwan provides those chips in reasonable price to the world, and the most goes to the United States, it becomes some kind of valued products. So it plus 3.6 times value. So why Taiwan matters? Because supply chain, because strategic position and plus one thing I think is the most important beyond all the cost or money. Value. Taiwan is a frontier of democracy, human rights. freedom in religions, all the value we believe.

Once Taiwan get invaded by CCP, or military conflict occur in this region, it's going to be disaster. So based on these bigger general pictures, my president, William Lai, he made a public commitment. We are going to increase our difficulties. budget beyond 3% of our GDP and 5% by 2029.

We need to increase our self-defense expense to show our determination to protect our own country, to stabilize this regional peace and stability, and to show our determination and to increase, to modernize, our military defense capability. So that's what we are doing now. So since last year, my government, we increased our annual defense budget near to 600 billion Taiwan dollars. We think it's not enough.

So we introduce a spatial budget, eight years going to introduce increase 1.25 trillion spatial defense budget. However, democracy, you need to communicate with opposition party. So our opposition party, KMT and the TPP, they don't like this. They claim to delete it all, cut it into zero. And the Taiwan mainstream, Taiwanese people don't like... Wait, they want to cut the budget to zero or the increase? to zero.

Cut it into zero. They don't, we don't need spatial budget. These 1.25 trillion, they think this, this spatial budget, we don't need that. How many people say we don't, no matter which party we support, the polls shows people support spatial defense budget. And those opposition parties, they feel the pressure from our people. So, international atmosphere, they think Taiwan should be responsible for their own security. From the United States, Trump administration urged opposition parties being reasonable.

Don't delete your own defense budget. If you don't value your own security, nobody will value your security more than you. So our opposition party under the pressure from our allies and inside Taiwan, this is most important. All the post shows people don't like that. So next week, our government is going to introduce new spatial budget, try to rescue those budget late delete. So we need to increase our defense annual budget.

So plus this, our defense budget going to very close, we are beyond 4% of our GDP. And if you plus Coast Guard expense our society resilience readiness budget into account, that will be close to 5% of our GDP. And my President William and I promised to reach that point by 2029. And next year, 2027, we are quite close. to what we commit to defend our own country. Some countries are creating greater cooperation with communist China. For example, my home country, Canada recently has officially been pursuing a strategic relationship,

right? The policy has changed quite a bit recently. What do you think of that kind of approach? We are not kids from kindergarten. We can live with you are CCP's friends and we are still close friends. Who is naive, who is childish? CCP they are. China is the only one to forbidden their friends to make friends with Taiwan. We never object that.

Yeah, United States, Canada, Japan, all the countries, All the country, of course you can be friends of China. It's no problem with Taiwan. And we still can be friends. We are not naive. We know sometimes some country because of commercial interest, sometimes because security issue, sometimes for personal reason,

they want to be close with China. We are fine. Well, it's okay, but I guess what I'm asking you is, do you think it's a good idea? Of course, not a good idea. So it's a phenomenon. But this phenomenon has two sides, has two faces. Some countries try to get engaged, close partnership with China, and they try to steal

what you can do. They will steal your technology. They will try to dump their mass products to your market, try to replace your original supply chain. They try to encourage their people, enter your society, but those people cannot enjoy democracy life. They have deep fear, controlled by Beijing government. So there are several countries, Honduras stopped the diplomatic relationship with Taiwan a couple years ago.

Yeah. And they believe in China's commitment, such a big country, commitment, billions of investment to their country. And now, last year, their major income from shrimp, their agricultural products, China, doesn't fulfill their commitment. 40% of their farmers lost their job. And the worst part is cheap products from China get into their hundlers' domestic market

and destroy their original economic ecology. They suffer from that. So the early of this year, Honduras their national-wide election, election, all pro-China candidates, everyone, all 100% pro-China parliament, fail in their election. And those pro-democracy close to United States, and the major two candidates said, if they win their presidency, they are going to restart their diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. Those two take more than 80% of the votes.

You can make friends with China, fine. But if you abandon all the value you believe, you abandon the democracy, you abandon your friends, you abandon the trust, just want to get benefit from China. All the outcome will be very miserable. It's not smart move. So Canada is a big country, G7 country.

Of course, you have your own strategy to deal with global issues. But if you put Canadian economy close to China, look at China. More than 25% of their younger generation out of employees, Their real estate, the top three company, IPO company, collapsed. Their cash flow stopped. Their tier two cities cannot afford to pay the teachers' public employee, public servants' wages and salary. And they increase their expense in military needs. So that kind of country, if you put your country too close to that kind of society, I think

it's not a smart decision. Beijing has put you on a Taiwan hardliner sanctions list for talking about such things. Presumably there may be some other reasons, but how do you respond to that? The sanctions to me, I got a medal three times. One they announced that me and the Rubio almost at the same time. But they changed the Rubio's Chinese name, then Rubio can enter China freely. It's a joke. But to me, some people will say, oh, I got sanctioned by China.

It's a medal of honor. Yeah, we can say that. But what I would try to say is a Marx. It's a marks of an autocracy. How they treat human beings. I support my own country. I support my kids have their own right to make their own choice. And I got sanctions.

Why? It's evidence of an autocracy. When China imposed sanctions, on Rubio's. It's not real Rubio's business. What Rubio has done? Rubio supports democracy allies. Then they impose sanctions on Rubio. And now they leave the sanction because he's a state secretary too big. I cannot, I can avoid that. So that is a mark. That is evidence of how autocracy deal with affairs related to human beings.

Basically, you're saying they just have this arbitrary decision-making. Yeah. This is a mark of this arbitrary decision-making of a autocracy. Yes, it's... I think sometimes it's their weakness. Young, maybe you will be on the name list of sanctions soon. I hope not. Maybe.

Never get to be on those lists at least, but... That it's okay. Trust me, it's okay. But for example, when they put your name on the list to impose sanctions, that means you are doing something positive to human rights, positive to those precious value we believe in. When you and them on the list, CCP imposed sanctions on you. That means they are afraid of you.

They can do nothing about you, just only can say, we sanction you. You cannot enter China. We try to do something harass your relatives in China. We try to harass your business or your friends' business in China. We're not doing such a traditional thing, because they are afraid of you. What you have done, what you believe, jeopardize their power. But you are much closer to China here just across the strait than I am. Are you not worried? Actually, I can share your secret with you. They imposed the sanctions on me three times.

And they even think gangsters try to harass me and my family. My kid's life was in danger. The full-armed policemen stand in front of my house for a long time. That's a price. When you try to do something right, you know, to choose a route, to do something right,

it's never an easy thing. Sometimes, be abidance to those monsters, be obedience to those dictators. Your life will be easier, but it's not right. I won't say it's easy. Under that kind of threat, look at your kids,

three, five, seven years old. It's not easy. But the only thing you can blend is CCP. We have to do nothing wrong. I was a city councilman. Now I'm a legislative councilman. later. When China imposed sanctions on me, you know, in Taiwan we emphasize transparency. So all the person or company, when they donate contribution to my campaign, I need to

honestly file the report to our institute. That would be public. So China based on those materials They call them This is China We know you are supporting someone Name Wang Ding Yu We impose sanction on him

If you keep supporting him You will be You will face in some harsh Result They're doing some This kind Try to intimidate my supporters This is crime

So I'm happy now So we have more colleagues join my now. Dozens of people, we are all on the list. But I think soon, evil will be gone. Soon. Well, Wang Ting Yu, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. It's my honor to have you here.

I hope you can come to Taiwan more often, please. I'll make a point of that. Thank you all for joining Legislator Wang Ting, you and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Janja Kelek.