Written by Tommy Hall and Margaret Siu.
Image credit: 08.27 總統出席「數位發展部揭牌暨部長布達典禮」 by 總統府/ Flickr, license: CC BY 2.0.
A Digital Transformation: Opportunities and Challenges
In the digital age, politics and technology are more intertwined than ever, especially in East Asia. With nations like Taiwan wrestling with the balance between free speech and foreign interference and Japan pivoting towards advanced tech solutions for national security, the right balance remains elusive, and the stakes perennial. By exploring these critical intersections between online spaces and national politics, this work spotlights the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for these East Asian democracies, as well as connecting the East Asian experience to the world at large.
First, one must acknowledge that social digital trends do not emerge in a vacuum, and there are global implications when it comes to the Internet’s transformative power. This tool has played a pivotal role in fostering social movements and enabling political figures to shape their images. Notable instances like the Arab Spring, #MeToo, and Barack Obama’s innovative use of social media during his 2008 presidential campaign illustrate the Internet’s profound political influence. Our argument is not that Taiwan and Japan stand alone when confronting these challenges. Instead, these global trends find local flavours in both case studies. For example, Taiwan’s recent reckoning with its own #MeToo movement began with a political drama that “sparked a wave” of public and anonymous conversations online about the intersection between sexual harassment and power.
At its darkest, the Internet also serves as a breeding ground for disinformation, targeted hatred, and political polarisation. When Facebook was introduced to Myanmar, it became a central platform for the military and opportunistic groups to target the Rohingya ethnic minority population. As a small consolation, social media also gave victims and NGOs a platform to shed light on these same atrocities. The argument is not that the Internet caused the genocide but instead that it facilitated the instant spread of latent anti-Rohingya sentiment. On a less serious scale, Japan’s 2014 election became embroiled in scandal and intrigue as groups of internet right-wingers (netto uyo) harnessed bot activity on Twitter to build a massive online support base for Shinzo Abe. Here, examples of Japan and Taiwan’s experiences in the digital realm illustrate how the Internet can intensify and create strong political sentiments among the public— providing essential insights into the complex relationship between technology and politics.
Taiwan: Disinformation in an Era of Polarised Politics
Now that these global links have been established, we turn to the first of our case studies: Taiwan. In Taiwan, concerns about foreign forces harnessing the digital sphere to influence domestic politics have clashed with a desire to protect netizens’ right to freely express political opinions. These feverish political battles have often put Taiwan’s National Communication Commission (a regulatory body for media) in the crosshairs. Tensions reached a climax during debates on the Digital Intermediary Service Acts, which proponents claimed aimed to increase algorithmic transparency and give teeth to efforts that would combat online disinformation. In contrast, detractors aired genuine grievances that the act threatened their speech rights. The bill ended up being withdrawn due to this backlash.
These clashes spawn partly from historical memories related to Taiwan’s authoritarian legacy, where the nationalist government forged “clientelistic” relationships with major media conglomerates and implemented harsh censorship of outsider voices. According to scholars Gary and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, these networks essentially erased any dividing lines between the autocratic KMT regime and media outlets because the owners of media corporations were tightly linked to the state apparatus, and journalists could not divert from the Party line without immense personal risks. Whenever new or existing laws are introduced or adapted in Taiwanese society to regulate media, the public reaction can often swiftly turn negative. For example, the Social Order Maintenance Act is a direct remnant of Taiwan’s authoritarian past, and it has been used to punish offenders for spreading misinformation. The backlash also spawns largely upon polarised partisan lines, with the KMT and pan-blue camp (almost paradoxically given Taiwan’s authoritarian past) attaching itself to the advocacy of free speech and opposition to governmental media regulation.
However, this public backlash can seem contradictory when one views the results of surveys that show most Taiwanese people have encountered misinformation in the past few years and believe that both the government and media outlets should be held responsible for reducing the spread of misinformation. The tension between a demand for government action to combat disinformation and mistrust of government media regulation will likely remain for the foreseeable future. The scale of this problem becomes more serious in light of Digital Society Project studies that named Taiwan as the “most targeted country by foreign governments” for almost the entirety of the last decade. Although propaganda wars between China and Taiwan are not a new phenomenon, the current situation can appear dire when one considers how rapidly misinformation can spread on the Internet and how new technology enables massive, targeted online campaigns. In the final weeks leading up to Taiwan’s presidential election, concerns about foreign disinformation campaigns and what powers the government should have to combat them have reemerged into the public spotlight.
Japan: New Approaches, Diverging Democratic Legacy
Similarly, other nations in the region are grappling with the challenges posed by the digital age. This is where we will pivot to our second case study: Japan. Japan unveiled its most recent National Security Strategy (NSS) in 2022, and it included two groundbreaking developments related to technology and the digital world. The first involves establishing a new governmental organisation to tackle the growing disinformation problem. The second mandates that artificial intelligence (AI) be used to assist the government’s intelligence-gathering and policymaking efforts. Although these goals will not be fulfilled before the end of the decade, they mark a striking pivot from Japan’s (in)famous reliance on traditional modes of bureaucracy—embracing the frontiers of technological development to bolster the island nation’s national security.
Japan also faces similar problems when it comes to low public trust in its media landscape, the rise of foreign government-sponsored misinformation, and adapting existing legislation to accommodate the Internet’s increasing prominence in national political discussions. However, there are sharp differences one must consider—such as one-party dominance in Japan’s democratic system, the increased role of public news broadcasting systems (the NHK) and differing historical legacies when it comes to the democratisation process. Japan, unlike Taiwan, has experienced more than three additional decades of democratic development in the post-war world.
These anecdotes only tread the surface of the intersection between fear, excitement, technology, and politics in East Asian democracies. AI is advancing at an ever-increasing pace despite associated current ethical dilemmas remaining unsolved, and it holds clear that the challenges and opportunities associated with recent technological advances are global. Each democracy’s attempts to adopt, embrace, regulate, or restrict emerging practices in the digital sphere offer implications for and lessons to other democratic states.
In this special issue series, we delve into the intricate relationship between technology and democracy in East Asia, casting a spotlight on Taiwan and Japan for a nuanced, comparative analysis. We start with a broad overview of how politicians, the media, and voters in East Asia have integrated with the digital landscape, focusing especially on the transformative nature of political communication. In the first article of this series, we argue that Taiwan’s struggle to balance the demands of free speech and protection from disinformation and Japan’s increasing reliance on new technology for national security purposes mirror global challenges. Building on this foundation, we will explore the unique ways in which Taiwan grapples with the pervasive challenge of online disinformation. Thus, our second article advocates the notion that a holistic national response is required to combat disinformation. The government and civil society cannot confront this problem alone. Our discussion culminates with an examination of the paramount importance of cybersecurity, especially when viewed against the backdrop of online political campaigns and computational propaganda, and its pivotal role in ensuring national security and political stability in both nations. In light of this discussion, our final article argues that Japan and Taiwan’s diverging approaches to integrating cybersecurity with national security highlight the importance of implementing a nuanced blend between technological adoption and public engagement. The point of this series is not to assess whether Japan or Taiwan is more adequately equipped to address these common problems, nor is it to identify which specific practices in one nation should be adopted in the other. Instead, it is to illustrate common trends that have global implications.
In other words, our mission is to decisively unpack and elucidate these pivotal developments, opportunities, and challenges, translating complex technical debates into compact and universally comprehensible insights. As the digital world rapidly evolves, understanding how East Asian democracies have adeptly navigated, confronted, and occasionally faltered in the face of these technological shifts is not just beneficial—it is essential for global preparedness and response.
Tommy Hall graduated from West Point with a B.Sc. in Foreign Languages: Chinese. He is a Marshall Scholar, currently reading for an M.St. in Diplomatic Studies at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, Tommy serves as the Book Review Editor and Opinion Editor for STAIR (St. Antony’s International Review). In 2023, he completed an M.A. in Chinese Studies at SOAS, University of London. Additionally, Tommy is the founder of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ Human Rights Initiative (HRI). His peer-reviewed work has previously been published in the Army Cyber Institute’s Cyber Defense Review.
Margaret Siu is a JD candidate at Harvard Law School with a focus on U.S.-East Asian economic statecraft and critical supply chains. She holds a Marshall Scholarship, having earned her M.Sc. at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Siu is actively involved in leadership positions with the Harvard International Law Journal and the advisory board of the Oxford Silk Road Society. She is also the founder of Apricity Magazine, an international arts journal. Her notable contributions include work for the UK National Committee on China, Oxford Political Review, and the China Project (SupChina). Siu has prior experience with the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and in the Trade and Investment team at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s Corporate and Compliance Legal Division.
This article was published as part of a special issue on Digital Governance in Taiwan and Japan.
