Taiwan flags page over military data

A WARNING: Military personnel should avoid casually interacting with unfamiliar Facebook pages, which might be seeking personal information, security officials said

• By Sam Garcia / Staff writer, with CNA

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A possibly China-linked Facebook page is suspected of using stories about historic military figures to collect personal information on Taiwan’s military personnel, security officials said yesterday.

The Facebook page Dreaming of China (夢回華夏) previously focused on posts about Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), his family and other historical political figures, but this month it began posting about serving and retired Taiwanese generals, raising suspicions that the page is seeking engagement from military personnel to harvest their personal information, the officials said.

An investigation found that the page’s administrators are based in Hong Kong and its operations follow the model of a commercial content farm and information operations network called the Borderless Group (無邊界集團) based in Qinhuangdao, China, they said.

Photos accompanying posts on the Dreaming of China Facebook page are shown in an image taken yesterday.

Photo: Screen grab from Dreaming of China’s Facebook page

The page’s operators might be attracting interactions from people with military backgrounds to analyze their account information and personal networks, looking for people to contact and networks to infiltrate, they said.

The page, which was established in 2023 under a different name, has published more than 300 posts since September, the officials said.

This month, it shifted its focus from historical figures to profiles of serving and retired generals, as well as submarines, paratroopers and female officers, they said.

The posts paint the subjects in a positive light, weaving in nostalgic, inspirational and heartwarming stories to attract interactions from military personnel, they said.

However, some posts were published without the subjects’ consent and used images generated by artificial intelligence, they added.

In one post about a female officer, someone claiming to be her superior commented that the photo was not of the officer herself, urging the page to verify the information and get the subject’s consent.

Some of the people featured in the posts raised similar concerns about the page with authorities.

The Borderless Group has close ties to China’s propaganda agencies and operates many nonpolitical Facebook pages covering topics such as parenting, education, celebrities and healthcare, University of Nevada, Las Vegas associate professor of political science Austin Wang (王宏恩) wrote in an article published in March.

When one of the pages is assigned a specific task, it might shift to posting a stream of dedicated content, Wang said.

Dreaming of China’s operating methods, which rely on content and algorithms to reach specific audiences rather than directing traffic through external links, are consistent with the operating tactics Wang described, security officials said.

The posts have attracted considerable attention from people with military backgrounds, with one post receiving about 12,000 likes and many comments from retired military personnel, some of whom even disclosed their connections to the post’s subject and information about their past military assignments, they said.

Retired military personnel have long been targets of Chinese intelligence-gathering operations, with some espionage cases involving efforts to recruit former service members through their personal networks, the officials said.

Military personnel should remain vigilant and avoid casually interacting with unfamiliar Facebook pages that suddenly begin posting about Taiwanese military figures, they said, adding that any suspicious activity should be reported to the relevant authorities.