PRC weaponizing Taiwan handover

‘RESTORATION’: Beijing marked Oct. 25 by showing satellite images of Taipei and Chinese fighter jets as part of its cognitive warfare, the defense minister said

• By Ben Blanchard / Reuters

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China was waging “cognitive warfare” by marking the anniversary of Japan’s handover of Taiwan with satellite impages of Taipei and a military propaganda poster, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday.

Japan took over Taiwan from China’s Qing Dynasty in 1895 and ruled it until 1945, when it transferred Taiwan to the Republic of China (ROC) government.

On Sunday’s anniversary of the handover, China released high-resolution satellite pictures of Taipei, including the main railway station and the National Palace Museum. The museum holds a vast collection of treasures brought to Taiwan in 1949, when the ROC government fled after losing a civil war to the Chinese communists.

Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo, center, is pictured in Taipei in an undated photograph.

Photo: Taipei Times

The Chinese military’s Eastern Theatre Command also published a poster with a map of Taiwan superimposed on images of fighter jets and warships, with the title “Remember the history of the restoration.”

Speaking to reporters at the Legislative Yuan, Koo said China was using the anniversary to carry out “cognitive warfare.”

“We must stress that the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949. The War of Resistance has absolutely nothing to do with the People’s Republic of China — this is a clear, objective fact,” he said, referring to World War II and the Japanese invasion of China, which began in 1931.

Taiwan’s military marked a different anniversary, the start of an unsuccessful late-October 1949 invasion attempt by the People’s Liberation Army of Kinmen, islands which sit next to the Chinese coast and remain under Taiwan’s control to this day.

Koo said that was a date much more worthy of remembering.

“This reminds us once again that China’s determination to annex the Republic of China and Taiwan by force has never changed. We should be even more vigilant,” he added.