In recent years, the relationship between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC, 中華人民共和國) has worsened, with Chinese Communist Party (CCP, 中國共產黨) General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) systematically employing all-domain coercion to isolate and pressure Taiwan into eventual unification. One of the principal coercive techniques employed by the CCP is cognitive warfare against the Taiwanese public. Despite these challenges, Taiwan has largely demonstrated resilience against this coercion, countering Beijing’s tactics with robust countermeasures.
However, Kinmen (金門) is an exception to this success story. Given its geography and economy, Kinmen is uniquely susceptible to PRC influence, and has been targeted through the weaponization of infrastructure and resource projects. Moreover, the CCP views political-economic integration between Kinmen and Fujian province as useful propaganda and as an experimental model for the integration of the rest of Taiwan. Many of the efforts that were temporarily put on hold due to the CCP’s challenges dealing with COVID are now being restarted. In the coming years, Taiwan should reassess both its defense policies and the economic development of Kinmen, to better address PRC cognitive warfare.
The Cognitive Warfare Campaign Against Taiwan
Cognitive warfare represents a strategic approach to conflict that seeks to influence and control the thought process, political-military decision-making, and behaviors of targeted populations. This approach is integral to a broader gray zone warfare strategy that aims to achieve objectives in a deniable way, without tripping response triggers.
The CCP’s cognitive warfare campaign against Taiwan generally employs a three-pronged approach, characterized by disinformation, military intimidation, and influence operations. The first prong—disinformation—is conducted through social media, traditional media, and cyber-attacks. Bot swarms and paid influencers on social media provide low-quality but massively distributed disinformation, such as the Secret History of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文秘史) content posted during the 2024 Taiwan elections. [1] Finally, the PRC continues to use cyber-attacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, timed to elections; these efforts have evolved beyond the denial of service attacks used in the past, and now include AI-generated fake news and content insertion.
The second prong, military intimidation, involves the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) military exercises and frequent incursions into Taiwan’s airspace and maritime territory. These actions seek to reinforce CCP propaganda of military dominance, challenge international norms through salami-slicing tactics, and deter potential external intervention in a future crisis. The final aspect is the use of influence operations, via a carrot-and-stick approach. As part of this approach, economic incentives and cultural exchanges are used to sway Taiwanese public opinion. These incentives are used to amplify social or political divisions within Taiwan, promote economic dependence on the PRC, and erode Taiwanese identity by portraying Taiwanese culture as an inseparable subset of Chinese culture.
The goals of this cognitive warfare strategy are to weaken public support for Taiwan’s de facto independence, undermine confidence in Taiwan’s government, and discourage international support for Taiwan. However, Taiwan has demonstrated strong internal resiliency, with a vibrant economy, a robust civil society capable of rapid fact-checking, and a younger generation of Taiwanese viewing themselves as having a distinct Taiwanese identity. Accordingly, more and more Taiwanese view PRC power and influence as a threat to that identity. However, these conditions do not hold on Kinmen. This means that the cognitive warfare campaign in Kinmen plays out differently, with a greater focus on influence operations through infrastructure.
The Infrastructure Lure for Kinmen
Kinmen’s prior history as part of the Republic of China’s Cold War-era fortress frontline against the PRC meant that Kinmen has had long-standing issues with economic self-sufficiency—particularly after the drawdown of the military garrison, which numbered over 100,000 at the height of the 1958 Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. During a warmer period of Taiwan-PRC engagement, both sides sought to leverage Kinmen’s geographic proximity to the PRC through the “Three Mini Links” (小三通)—a program of limited postal, transportation, and trade links established in 2001. This, in turn, has resulted in a tourism industry largely catering to Chinese visitors.
However, Xi has pushed for further integration between Fujian and Kinmen, with economic integration in particular being a pet-project of his since the 1990s. In 2019, Xi announced the “Four New Links” (新四通) program, with the aim of creating a “Xiamen-Kinmen Living Circle” (廈金同城生活圈). This program involves the provision of water, electricity, and natural gas from the mainland, along with a bridge to connect Kinmen with Xiamen. This effort is now being accelerated amidst China’s false narratives that both promote distrust of Taiwan and promise economic prosperity for Kinmen.
Promises of economic development are a strong incentive for Kinmen to cooperate with the mainland, as the island faces long-term economic challenges due to its PRC-dependent tourism economy, small export sector, and lack of self-sufficiency. The PRC has leveraged these challenges to promote perceptions of the “inevitability” and “necessity” of infrastructure integration, while downplaying the national security risks.
While the Three Mini Links were the result of cross-Strait agreements, the PRC now pushes unilateral infrastructure projects in the name of the Four New Links. Two prime examples of this are the Kinmen-Xiamen Bridge project (金廈大橋) and Xiamen Xiang’an Airport (廈門翔安國際機場). While the PRC outwardly promotes these projects to Kinmen in terms of their economic benefits, PRC domestic media frames both projects as stepping stones towards integrating Kinmen—and later Taiwan—under PRC control.
Image: The completed construction of a trestle for the Kinmen-Xiamen Bridge, located on Xiamen island on the PRC side. The goal of the bridge is to connect Kinmen to the future Xiang’an Airport, and to thereby integrate Kinmen into the greater Xiamen area via direct transportation links. Unilateral construction is meant to put pressure on the Taiwan side to reciprocate. (Image source: Xiamen News)
The Kinmen-Xiamen Bridge Project
The Kinmen-Xiamen Bridge project, the PRC’s largest cross-Strait infrastructure initiative as part of the Four New Links, exemplifies the ongoing integration strategy intended to leverage established dependencies. The PRC initiated construction unilaterally, completing the first trestle of the Xiamen section in May 2024. However, the bridge cannot be completed without the assent of Taiwan, a topic that featured prominently in the 2024 Taiwanese elections. The Kinmen County government is supportive of the project, citing the promise of economic benefits through the linking of Kinmen with the far larger Xiamen market. They also note the success of PRC investment in the China-Kinmen Water Pipeline in addressing local needs. However, China’s motives extend beyond economic cooperation. By promoting increased communication, trade, and tourism, the PRC aims to more closely integrate Kinmen with China—and thereby to bolster its political influence on the island.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC, 大陸委員會) has rejected the proposed construction as a unilateral proposal by the CCP, and not consistent with the previously established Three Mini Links program because of the negative impact it would have on Taiwan’s national security. The council also noted that the policies of the CCP have shifted to a focus on maximizing intimidation and suppression of its outlying islands. MAC’s concern is that China’s initiatives to integrate Kinmen into Fujian will expand to other outlying islands, with Matsu particularly vulnerable. These are not unfounded concerns, given the development of the Xiamen Xiang’an Airport as an accompanying project to the bridge.
The Xiamen Xiang’an Airport
The Xiang’an International Airport is a mega-infrastructure project currently under construction on Dadeng Island (大嶝島) in Xiamen. Upon its expected completion in 2026, the new facility is slated to replace the existing Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport (廈門高崎國際機場) as the city’s main aviation hub. This airport project is quite literally connected to the Kinmen-Xiamen Bridge project: both are designed as part of the transportation network for the “Xiamen-Kinmen ‘City Life Circle’” , itself a component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, formerly known as “One Belt, One Road,” 一帶一路).
Image: A graphic depicting the location of the future Xiang’an – Xiamen Airport currently under construction, and corresponding transportation infrastructure, with the island of Kinmen at lower right. The currently incomplete Kinmen-Xiamen Bridge would connect Kinmen to the new airport. (Source: Investinxiamen.org)
This project is a significant strategic investment by China, advertised as addressing capacity constraints, enhancing regional connectivity, promoting cross-Strait exchanges, and fostering economic development. Planning and construction began in 2007, with construction of the main terminal building beginning in 2022. The first phase of construction will feature two 3600 meter runways and will be capable of accommodating 45 million passengers per year, with the second phase adding two more runways and accommodations for 75 million per year by 2040.
For Taiwan, the airport project has attracted far less political commentary than the bridge, but represents a differing, long-term threat. The bridge is a physical connection, and thus it is easy to envision the military threat this would pose to Kinmen. However, the proposed airport raises a number of gray zone issues.
The first of these would be the utilization of Xiang’an Airport to monopolize air travel into Kinmen. Combined with the bridge, Xiang’an Airport would serve to replace not just the PRC’s own airport, but Kinmen’s existing (and far smaller) Shangyi Airport (尚義機場). The PRC could speed the process of economically subsuming Shangyi Airport with unspoken threats to flight safety. Given the proximity of the two airports, continuous coordination would be needed to prevent aviation accidents. However, China has demonstrated a pattern of dangerous unilateral changes and lack of communication, as seen in its opening of new air routes near Taiwan’s median line and outlying islands without consultation.
Another issue connected to the use of land reclamation for airport construction is that it serves as an excuse to change the physical environment in the PRC’s favor. This is akin to the PRC use of land reclamation in the South China Sea. Current land reclamation has already reduced the distance between Kinmen and mainland China from six kilometers to three kilometers. This makes the recent PRC denial of the existence of restricted waters around Kinmen, and the surge in China Coast Guard presence in the area, even more troubling. Combined with further reclamation, this could essentially allow the PRC to isolate Kinmen without firing a shot.
Image: Satellite images of Xiang’an Airport land reclamation between December 2010 (left) and December 2020 (right). The land reclamation essentially halves the distance between Xiamen and Kinmen, creating its own territorial realities through an ostensibly civilian infrastructure project. [2]
Conclusion
China’s infrastructure projects are a critical component of its broader cognitive warfare strategy against Taiwan, which emphasizes a negative cycle of increasing dependency. Kinmen’s reliance on the PRC for critical resources like freshwater has led to local calls for additional infrastructure. Such calls intersect with PRC propaganda, such as the proposal for a demilitarized “Cross-Strait Peace Experimental Zone”—which in turn would ease the way for additional gray zone coercion. After all, many of the tools the CCP uses for gray zone coercion—such as the China Coast Guard—are ostensibly civilian organizations, and not explicitly military.
Even more seriously, this is not something that can be isolated to Kinmen. In the 2024 Taiwan presidential elections, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP, 民眾黨) candidate Ko Wenje (柯文哲) and the TPP vocally supported the bridge project as part of a “Kinmen First” platform. Ko sought to differentiate himself from similar supportive calls by the Kuomintang (KMT, 國民黨) by not making this support conditional on overall cross-Strait relations. The KMT, in turn, proposed a local referendum on the matter. In this way, the CCP has used the bridge to force several wedges into Taiwanese politics—first by inserting the CCP narrative of a Cross-Strait Peace Experimental Zone into broader Taiwanese politics, and second by getting a mainstream Taiwanese party to amplify CCP propaganda to the effect that Taiwan’s politicians do not care about the people of Kinmen.
Taiwan’s response to these challenges must involve a reassessment of its defense policy and economic development strategies for Kinmen. Just as the PRC utilizes cognitive warfare to undermine the security of Kinmen, Taiwan cannot rely on its military alone to defend Kinmen. Kinmen can only be defended if its people want to be defended, and if the people feel a greater connection to Taiwan than they do to the mainland. This means strengthening civil resiliency and civil society on Kinmen, with a focus on the younger generations. Even more importantly, Taiwan should assist Kinmen in diversifying their economy away from over-reliance on exports and tourism from the PRC. Trade and tourism with the mainland should be a choice for Kinmen, but not the only choice for prosperity. PRC cognitive warfare against Kinmen seeks to isolate the island, and to create a sense of singular inevitability to its incorporation into the PRC. Taiwan’s response should be to empower the people of Kinmen by connecting them to the global economy, thereby providing new opportunities and a worldview beyond the skyscrapers of Xiamen.
The main point: CCP cognitive warfare techniques aim to shape the thought and decision-making process of Taiwan’s citizens, promoting the “inevitability” of unification. On Kinmen, the CCP does this through the use of unilateral infrastructure projects and resource dependency. Taiwan should reassess its defense and economic strategies for Kinmen—focusing on countering CCP narratives, fostering civil society engagement, and encouraging Kinmen’s economic diversification.
[1] PRC state media, particularly “prestige” mouthpieces such as the People’s Daily (人民日報), disseminates the official party line; while “tabloid” papers such as the Global Times (環球時報) are used for less reputable tasks such as spreading conspiracy theories or making thinly-veiled threats.
[2] Image adopted from: Min-Cheng Tu and YJ Huang, “Impact of Land Reclamation on Coastal Water in a Semi-Enclosed Bay,” Remote Sensing 15 (2023), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367173006_Impact_of_Land_Reclamation_on_Coastal_Water_in_a_Semi-Enclosed_Bay. Image original source: Google Earth.
