Taipei Forum Examines China’s Expanding Influence Around the World
The "China in the World 2026" forum has brought together experts from around the world to examine the growing global reach of Beijing's influence operations. Hosted in Taipei by the Taiwan-based NGO Doublethink Lab, the conference focuses on issues including disinformation, cognitive warfare, transnational repression, economic coercion, and the use of emerging technologies to shape public opinion and international institutions.
China's Global Influence and Taiwan's Response
REPORTER:
Experts from around the world are gathering in Taipei to discuss the many ways Beijing projects its influence: from crackdowns on dissents and critics to global information campaigns.
They are attending the “China in the World 2026” forum organized by the Doublethink Lab, a Taiwan-based non-profit that studies China’s influence operations.
The forum comes amid growing concerns over how far China’s reach could extend beyond its borders. Taiwan and other countries have warned that a sweeping new ethnic unity law implemented by Beijing last week could be used to pressure or target people overseas.
Bi-khim Hsiao (TAIWAN VICE PRESIDENT):
We are concerned that the new Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law may become another tool in the same toolkit, extending its logic of suppressing dissident beyond China’s borders and applying it to critics and communities abroad.
The vice president herself was the reported target of an intelligence operation during a 2024 visit to Prague, showing Beijing's willingness to target even the highest levels of Taiwan's leadership.
Just days before the event, China also announced a new coast guard patrol mission to Taiwan's east, a move seen as an escalating expansion of its claims over Taiwan and stretching into the pacific.
Damon Wilson (PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY):
The CCP represents a challenge unlike any other in modern history, an anti-democratic superpower deeply embedded in the global economy, international institutions, frontier technologies, and critical supply chains. It's creating new institutions and new mechanisms to project its influence, while employing political, economic, technological and informational tools to reshape the international environment in its favor.
In 2026 alone, China has taken a series of measures aimed at isolating and pressing Taiwan — including allegedly pushing several African countries to deny overflight permission to President Lai Ching-te's plane during a diplomatic visit to Eswatini.
Beijing has also expanded maritime incursions to waters all around Taiwan, increased the detention of Taiwanese travelers or residents, and restricted Taiwanese scholars from participating in academic conferences overseas.
With local elections approaching this fall, concerns are growing over how China could seek to influence Taiwan’s democratic process. Participants here hope that by sharing lessons and experiences, democracies can stay ahead of misinformation, cyber threats and other forms of interference.
Alex Chen and Lery Hiciano in Taipei, for TaiwanPlus.
