TAIPEI — There is an unusual tension in the air as Taiwan’s local elections approach. On one side, there are the familiar sights of democracy: campaign billboards lining the streets, candidates shaking hands at market entrances, and political debates filling the evening airwaves. In Taipei, a giant billboard featuring Democratic Progressive Party mayoral candidate Puma Shen watches over pedestrians, a reminder that the island is preparing to choose its city and county leaders on November 28. But beneath this bustling democratic routine lies a quieter, more sinister struggle. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau has just delivered a sobering report to parliament, warning that the island is under a relentless digital siege from China. According to the intelligence agency, Beijing has sharply escalated both cyberattacks and the spread of disinformation in the months leading up to the vote. It is a modern kind of warfare, fought not with tanks or missiles, but with keystrokes, algorithms, and fake news — all aimed at eroding public trust in Taiwan’s government and influencing the way its people vote. For Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory, this is not just a technical issue. It is a daily reality, woven into the lives of officials, journalists, researchers, and ordinary citizens who must now navigate a political landscape where foreign interference is as common as rainfall.
The scale of the cyber offensive is staggering, and it is growing. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau reported that the island was hit by an average of 2.6 million cyberattacks per day during the first nine months of 2026. That number alone is difficult to grasp, but it becomes even more troubling when considering the trend: the intensity has increased since June, just as the election campaign season began to heat up. Behind these numbers are real consequences. Government websites struggle to stay online. Public services are interrupted. Security teams work around the clock, patching vulnerabilities and tracing intrusion attempts. This is not abstract warfare; it is a constant, grinding effort to destabilize a functioning democracy. For Taiwanese civil servants and cybersecurity professionals, it means sleepless nights and an endless race against attackers who seem to have limitless resources. The report describes China’s “cyber army” as highly organized, with clear targets and sophisticated tools. The message to the public is clear: no one is safe from this digital assault, and the threat is not going away. It is a reminder that in today’s world, national security is no longer only about physical borders; it is also about the integrity of the networks that power everything from banking to hospital records to voting systems.
China’s cyber campaign is not random. The targets are carefully selected to maximize damage to Taiwan’s governance and long-term resilience. According to the intelligence report, Chinese attackers have focused on academic and research institutions, telecommunications companies, and defense supply chains. These sectors were chosen for a reason. By hitting research centers, Beijing aims to steal sensitive technologies and undermine Taiwan’s innovation edge. By targeting telecommunications, it hopes to disrupt communication networks and sow chaos. By infiltrating defense supply chains, it intends to interfere with Taiwan’s defense operations and weaken the island’s ability to protect itself. The report also warns that China is making use of artificial intelligence to enhance its attacks, including “AI agents” designed to automatically scan government websites for vulnerabilities. This is a particularly chilling development, because it means the attackers are not limited by human speed or fatigue. Machines are probing Taiwan’s defenses around the clock, learning from each failure, and adapting to every patch. The goal, according to intelligence officials, is not just to steal data. It is to undermine international cooperation, weaken Taiwan’s partnerships with like-minded democracies, and create a general sense of vulnerability that makes Taiwan seem unreliable or unsafe. For scientists at Taiwan’s universities and engineers at its tech firms, this is an invisible battle that plays out in their daily work — an endless stream of phishing emails, suspicious logins, and strange network activity that they must treat as threats to national security.
Just as alarming as the cyberattacks is the flood of disinformation aimed at Taiwanese voters. The National Security Bureau reports that intelligence officials collected more than 2.5 million pieces of false or misleading information spread by the Chinese Communist Party over the first nine months of the year. That is a dramatic increase from the roughly 1.7 million pieces collected during the same period last year. Most of this content is circulating on popular social media platforms like Facebook and Threads, where it can easily blend in with genuine posts, memes, and news articles. The disinformation takes many forms: exaggerated claims about political candidates, fabricated stories about government corruption, misleading comparisons between Taiwan and mainland China, and emotionally charged content designed to provoke anger, fear, or hopelessness. For ordinary Taiwanese citizens, this means that scrolling through social media has become a minefield. A funny video, a shocking headline, or a heartfelt story might be authentic — or it might be a carefully crafted piece of foreign propaganda. The intelligence report concludes that the Chinese Communist Party has “utilized diverse channels,” both technological and human, to influence voters’ preferences and, ultimately, the election results. This is a direct assault on the democratic process, and it has a deeply human cost: it makes people distrustful of one another, cynical about politicians, and unsure of what is true. It also places a heavy burden on ordinary people, who must now act as their own fact-checkers, media critics, and digital detectives.
This latest escalation cannot be understood without remembering the larger context. China has long claimed Taiwan as part of its territory and has never ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taipei rejects that claim and views itself as a self-governing democracy with its own institutions, elections, and national identity. For years, Beijing has tried to isolate Taiwan internationally, pressure its allies, and threaten military action. But the current cyber and disinformation campaign represents a different kind of pressure — one aimed at the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese people. The goal is not simply to win a political debate, but to make Taiwan’s democratic system seem chaotic, unreliable, and futile. By flooding the information space with lies, Beijing hopes to erode public confidence in the Taiwanese government and push voters toward apathy or division. This is a strategy of exhaustion, and it is dangerous precisely because it is difficult to detect. There are no bombs falling and no soldiers crossing the strait, but the damage can be just as real. Democracy depends on trust — trust in institutions, trust in the electoral process, and trust that citizens can make informed decisions. When that trust is eroded, everything else begins to crumble. Yet Taiwan has also shown remarkable resilience. Despite the relentless attacks, its officials continue to report what they find, its media continues to investigate, and its citizens continue to prepare for the upcoming vote. The report to parliament is itself an act of transparency, a way of arming the public with the knowledge they need to defend themselves.
As Taiwan heads to the polls on November 28, the stakes could not be higher. Voters will elect city and county government officials across the island, choosing the people who will manage their schools, transport, healthcare, and local economies. In any election, there are competing visions and lively debates. But this year, the election is also a test of democratic endurance under foreign pressure. The intelligence warnings serve as a reminder that the election is not only happening on the ground, in campaign stops and polling stations, but also in cyberspace, where algorithms and agents are working around the clock to shape the outcome. For Taiwanese voters, the challenge is to remain clear-eyed and critical, to question what they see online, and to remember that their choices belong to them — not to any foreign power. The human side of this story is found in the resilience of ordinary people: the cybersecurity workers monitoring attacks all night, the journalists and fact-checkers chasing down false stories, the candidates debating policies despite knowing they may be targeted by smear campaigns, and the citizens who show up to vote even when they are told it does not matter. Taiwan’s intelligence report is not just a warning about Chinese interference; it is evidence that the island is still paying attention, still protecting its democracy, and still willing to stand up for its own future. In the end, the election will be decided by the people of Taiwan, not by the cyber armies or propaganda machines working against them. And that, perhaps, is the most reassuring message of all.