espionage
Days Ahead of Critical Vote, Taiwan Accuses China of ‘Unprecedented’ Election Interference
With two days remaining until a landmark recall referendum that could unseat nearly a quarter of Taiwan’s legislature, the government’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has issued a stark warning: the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “unprecedented” interference aimed at influencing the outcome.
In a rare statement released Tuesday, the MAC accused Beijing of flooding social media platforms and Taiwanese media outlets with targeted disinformation to sway the July 26 vote. According to the Council, the CCP’s Taiwan Affairs Office and state-run propaganda outlets have published and circulated “hundreds” of articles and videos across WeChat, TikTok, and Weibo — content that has then been amplified through local news outlets, often distorted to fit CCP narratives.
The scale of Beijing’s interference is “without disguise,” the MAC said.
“Through repeated pushes on Weibo, TikTok, and WeChat, and through reports by relevant Taiwanese media, [that] were processed and exaggerated, and repeatedly spread at multiple levels,” the MAC’s statement says, Beijing’s “degree of deliberate intervention was unprecedented.”
The statement comes amid growing concern in Taipei and Washington that the Chinese government is using Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party — which has long favored closer ties with Beijing — as a proxy to destabilize the Lai Ching-te administration and cripple national defense efforts. The MAC, Taiwan’s top agency for dealing with the People’s Republic of China, underscored that while Taiwan’s elections and recall votes are “basic rights granted to the people,” the CCP “has no right to intervene.”
That concern was reinforced Wednesday morning by Joseph Wu, Secretary-General of Taiwan’s National Security Council and the nation’s former foreign minister. Wu posted a stark warning on social media following a Ministry of National Defense bulletin reporting the detection of 48 Chinese military aircraft and 9 PLAN warships operating around Taiwan. “Taiwan will hold recall elections this Saturday – an exercise of democracy enshrined by our constitution. Unfortunately, China won’t miss this opportunity to interfere, through military coercion and disinformation,” Wu wrote. The MND said 36 of the PLA sorties had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line or entered Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ), describing the moves as part of a coordinated gray-zone campaign.
The Bureau previously reported that the July 26 referendum marks the largest coordinated recall effort in the island’s history. If successful, it could remove 24 KMT lawmakers who recall organizers say have consistently obstructed legislation aimed at deterring Beijing’s influence operations and bolstering military readiness.
President Lai has backed the recall effort as a national security imperative, warning that China’s goal is to “absorb Taiwan’s institutions from within.” He has accused certain KMT lawmakers of undermining sovereignty through opposition to defense budgets, support for cross-strait trade policies that benefit Beijing, and even alleged leaks of classified defense information.
Beijing, in turn, has reacted furiously. Days after Lai launched a “Unity for Taiwan” national speech tour, the CCP’s Taiwan Affairs Office accused the president of inciting a “political struggle for personal gain,” and blasted his assertion that “Taiwan is of course a country” as a “hostile provocation.”
In Washington, senior officials are watching closely. Earlier this year, senators Dan Sullivan and Angus King sharply criticized the KMT’s efforts to slash Taiwan’s proposed defense budget, calling it a dangerous signal amid rising threats from the People’s Liberation Army.
Meanwhile, civil society groups in Taiwan have framed the recall as a grassroots effort to purge Beijing’s covert United Front infiltration operations from the legislature. The campaign has been spearheaded by activists and supported by billionaire Robert Tsao, who described the moment as “Taiwan’s last chance” to stop a slow internal takeover.
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Business
P.E.I. Moves to Open IRAC Files, Forcing Land Regulator to Publish Reports After The Bureau’s Investigation
Following an exclusive report from The Bureau detailing transparency concerns at Prince Edward Island’s land regulator — and a migration of lawyers from firms that represented the Buddhist land-owning entities the regulator had already probed — the P.E.I. Legislature has passed a new law forcing the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) to make its land-investigation reports public.
The bill — introduced by Green Party Leader Matt MacFarlane — passed unanimously on Wednesday, CTV News reported. It amends the Lands Protection Act to require IRAC to table final investigation reports and supporting documents in the Legislature within 15 days of completion.
MacFarlane told CTV the reform was necessary because “public trust … is at an all-time low in the system,” adding that “if Islanders can see that work is getting done, that the (LPA) is being properly administered and enforced, that will get some trust rebuilt in this body.”
The Bureau’s report last week underscored that concern, showing how lawyers from Cox & Palmer — the firm representing the Buddhist landholders — steadily moved into senior IRAC positions after the regulator quietly shut down its mandated probe into those same entities. The issue exploded this fall when a Legislative Committee subpoena confirmed that IRAC’s oft-cited 2016–2018 investigation had never produced a final report at all.
There have been reports, including from CBC, that the Buddhist landholders have ties to a Chinese Communist Party entity, which leaders from the group deny.
In the years following IRAC’s cancelled probe into the Buddhist landholders, The Bureau reported, Cox & Palmer’s general counsel and director of land joined IRAC, and the migration of senior former lawyers culminated this spring, with former premier Dennis King appointing his own chief of staff, longtime Cox & Palmer partner Pam Williams, as IRAC chair shortly after the province’s land minister ordered the regulator to reopen a probe into Buddhist landholdings.
The law firm did not respond to questions, while IRAC said it has strong measures in place to guard against any conflicted decision-making.
Reporting on the overall matter, The Bureau wrote that:
“The integrity of the institution has, in effect, become a test of public confidence — or increasingly, of public disbelief. When Minister of Housing, Land and Communities Steven Myers ordered IRAC in February 2025 to release the 2016–2018 report and reopen the investigation, the commission did not comply … Myers later resigned in October 2025. Days afterward, the Legislative Committee on Natural Resources subpoenaed IRAC to produce the report. The commission replied that no formal report had ever been prepared.”
The Bureau’s investigation also showed that the Buddhist entities under review control assets exceeding $480 million, and there is also a planned $185-million campus development in the Town of Three Rivers, citing concerns that such financial power, combined with a revolving door between key law firms, political offices and the regulator, risks undermining confidence in P.E.I.’s land-oversight regime.
Wednesday’s new law converts the expectation for transparency at IRAC, voiced loudly by numerous citizens in this small province of about 170,000, into a statutory obligation.
Housing, Land and Communities Minister Cory Deagle told CTV the government supported the bill: “We do have concerns about some aspects of it, but the main principles of what you’re trying to achieve are a good thing.”
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Daily Caller
Laura Ingraham’s Viral Clash With Trump Prompts Her To Tell Real Reasons China Sends Students To US
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
On Monday, Ingraham pressed Trump on why a plan to admit 600,000 Chinese nationals into U.S. universities qualifies as a “pro-MAGA” move, challenging him directly after he defended the influx as vital to maintaining Washington’s relationship with Beijing. During a Wednesday broadcast, Ingraham said no modern president has fought harder for American workers than Trump and predicted he will “honor that distinction for the next three years.”
“There was also more consternation over the approach to allowing Chinese and other foreign students to take spots at U.S. universities. A lot of MAGA folks didn’t like that at all. And it’s not, by the way, as some Chinese influencers today said on X, I love this, it’s not that the MAGA folks, certainly not myself, dislike the Chinese people. It’s ridiculous,” Ingraham said.
“What they dislike is the Chinese system that represses Chinese people and uses them as human spies and saboteurs. Remember, when the CCP greenlights hundreds of thousands of their people to come study here, they’re not sending them so they can learn about the wonders of Western civilization, Plato and Socrates, Greek history, become champions of individual freedom and take that message back home. They’re sent here to do whatever is necessary to learn how to push the People’s Republic closer to crushing America, to stealing from us, and for spying on us,” Ingraham added.
Ingraham said that people “understandably perplexed by some of the president’s comments, we cannot forget, what American president has ever been tougher on China than Donald Trump? None.”
Ingraham told viewers that Beijing does not send its students to America to study the Western canon or return home as advocates of individual liberty.
WATCH:
Ingraham warned that China’s rise didn’t happen overnight, saying that decades of inattentive presidents allowed Beijing to gain the strength Trump now must confront.
“Given China’s growing strength that’s been amassed over decades of presidents who were out to lunch, President Trump inherited the most challenging situation,” Ingraham said. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this, that any president has faced in the last 50 years. He and his entire team are dedicated to countering the Chinese aggression that’s building.”
Washington and Beijing struck a deal in June clearing the way for Chinese nationals to enroll in American universities, a shift that followed the administration’s June 5 move blocking Harvard from bringing in additional international students. Officials justified the restriction by pointing to security vulnerabilities and rising campus turmoil, including allegations of antisemitic activity, as reasons to tighten the flow of foreign applicants.
Trump acknowledged at the time that admitting large numbers of students from a country controlled by the Chinese Communist Party carries real intelligence concerns, saying in June that the government “must be vigilant” about who enters U.S. classrooms. National security experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the policy could create openings for the CCP to exploit America’s higher-education system and potentially endanger U.S. interests.
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