Taiwan Official Warns: The CCP “Hates Trump,” Be Vigilant Against Election Interference from China

This is part two of a three-part interview series with Dr. Twu Shiing-jer, Chairman of Taiwan’s Development Center for Biotechnology and former Taiwan Minister of Health. Dr. Twu’s insights are translated from the original Mandarin.

Part one detailed Dr. Twu’s comments on the spread of COVID-19 from China, which he calls “bioterrorism” and a “crime against humanity” by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

During the interview, Dr. Twu also discussed China’s intense presidential election interference efforts in Taiwan and warned Americans about Chinese efforts to interfere in this year’s U.S. presidential election.

Caption: Dr. Twu Shiing-jer (Source: Facebook)

Chinese Election Interference

“There is no way that the CCP will not think of a way to interfere in the U.S. presidential election,” Dr. Twu said. “Just like China interfered with Taiwan’s presidential election, it will definitely interfere in the U.S. election. It’s only a matter of which methods they will use.”

Taiwan successfully defended against disinformation attacks and military intimidation from China in the run-up to its presidential election in January of this year. Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s current vice president, was elected to succeed Tsai Ing-wen, who has served as Taiwan’s president for the past eight years. Like Dr. Twu, both Taiwanese President Tsai and President-elect Lai are members of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which the CCP has tried to thwart via election interference in Taiwan.

Lai will become Taiwan’s president in May. Dr. Twu has served with President-elect Lai in Taiwan’s legislature and knows him personally.

Caption: Dr. Twu Shiing-jer with now President-elect of Taiwan Lai Ching-te in 2018 (Source: Facebook)

Dr. Twu noted that TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based company that is answerable to the CCP, was used as a disinformation tool by China to attempt to influence Taiwan’s election, in addition to the use of Chinese “cyber armies” and bots. China also routinely circled Taiwan with military aircraft in attempts to intimidate Taiwan with the threat of force.

The CCP “Hates Trump More” Than Biden

Dr. Twu advised the United States to “be vigilant early on” against Chinese election interference. He cited the major increase in the use of mail-in voting during the 2020 presidential election in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic spread by China, and said that “what methods the CCP will use this time [in the 2024 presidential election] is unknown.”

With regard to the direction in which China will try to interfere, Dr. Twu said that, between President Trump and Joe Biden, although the CCP “doesn’t like Biden,” it “hates Trump more.”

As an illustration of this, Dr. Navarro notes in his book “Taking Back Trump’s America” that “literally four minutes into the Biden administration, Communist China imposed sanctions on [Mike] Pompeo, [Robert C.] O’Brien, [Steve] Bannon, and myself.” On that day, January, 20, 2021, the CCP published an angry screed prohibiting these Trump administration China hawks from entering a country that is struggling to stop its own people from escaping.

CCP “Tiger” Is “Getting Ready to Spring”

Citing another book by Dr. Navarro, “Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World,” which was published in 2015, Dr. Twu also addressed cross-Strait military tensions between Taiwan and China, as well as the United States’ support of Taiwan’s defense.

“The U.S. has raised up the CCP into a big tiger,” Dr. Twu said, referencing the United States’ decades-long economic and diplomatic cooperation with totalitarian China, from which the first Trump administration made major strides toward decoupling. “Dr. Navarro wrote a book saying that the CCP is a tiger. It’s getting ready to spring up and eat people.”

Caption: A Taiwanese translation of Dr. Navarro’s book “Crouching Tiger.” A quote on the cover attributed to Dr. Navarro translates to, “Compromising with China will not bring peace.”

Dr. Twu commented on new reports that U.S. troops are now operating on outlying islands controlled by Taiwan, including on Quemoy, located only a few miles off the coast of totalitarian China.

Late 2020, during the first Trump administration, marked the first time that U.S. troops had been confirmed by Taiwan’s government to be conducting a training operation in Taiwan since the U.S. cut formal diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979 in favor of the CCP-controlled People’s Republic of China. Prior to 1979, U.S. troops had been officially stationed on Taiwan.

Dr. Twu, who served in Taiwan’s legislature from 2008 to 2012, confirmed that U.S. military coordination with Taiwan’s defense operations has been ongoing for many years, specifically pointing to U.S. military involvement with the Tri-Service Hengshan Military Command Center, a huge underground nerve center in Taipei that serves as the Taiwan military’s highest-level command center. The center is reportedly linked to the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii.

“I served in the Legislative Yuan, and I know…in actuality, the United States is behind the Hengshan Military Command Center…[the center] is operated in tandem with the U.S.,” Dr. Twu said, adding that new public reports of U.S. troop activity in Taiwan are purposeful warnings to China. He said that, on the whole, the Taiwanese people “accept and welcome” the U.S military’s presence in Taiwan and also appreciate the security umbrella that the U.S. provides from bases in Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere in the Pacific.

‘A Problem for the U.S. Means a Problem for Taiwan’

In explaining the defense relationship between Taiwan and the U.S., Dr. Twu referenced comments made by the late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe had stated, “If Taiwan has a problem, then Japan has a problem, and the Japan-U.S. alliance also has a problem.” By this, Abe implied that Taiwan is highly important to Japan’s geopolitical security, and that a move on Taiwan by China would bring Japan into military conflict with China. This would in turn trigger the U.S. Japan Security Treaty, thus drawing the U.S. into the conflict.

Dr. Twu sees things differently, stating that, rather than taking Taiwan, the CCP’s top objective is defeating the United States and becoming the world’s hegemon. He published a Chinese-language piece arguing that instead of Abe’s “If Taiwan has a problem, then Japan has a problem, and the U.S. has a problem” line of logic, the thinking should rather be reversed to, “If the U.S. has a problem, then Japan has a problem, and Taiwan has a problem.” Any problem that weakens the United States would translate into a Japan that would have increased difficulty protecting Taiwan from China, and this would be a major problem for Taiwan.

“The CCP only wants Taiwan as a jumping off point into the Pacific…they could kill all of the Taiwanese people and they wouldn’t care. They just want this island as an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier,’” Dr. Twu said, adding that the recognition of this reality has meant increasingly strong U.S. support for Taiwan. “[For the CCP] the real target is the United States.”

Dr. Twu’s Chinese-language piece concludes, “The United States has gradually moved from traditional strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity [with respect to defending Taiwan]… [the U.S.] has proactively deployed heavy weapons in Japan and Taiwan to prepare to stop the CCP's invasion of Taiwan and counterattack the CCP in the shortest possible time. Stop doubting the United States, and stop being anti-American. If something happens to the United States, something will happen to Japan, and something will happen to Taiwan! This is the reality of international politics.”

To be continued.

Adam Molon is a guest columnist for Peter Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America and author of NewSentry, a Substack publication. Dr. Navarro has called Adam “a rising Young Gun in journalism.” Adam is on Twitter/X and Gettr @admolon and on Truth Social

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