Amid intensifying cross-Strait tensions, Taiwan is among the world’s most frequent targets of cyberattacks, predominantly attributed to Chinese state-backed hackers. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) has assessed that infrastructure on the island experienced a daily average of 2.63 million cyberattacks in 2025, more than double that of 2023. Energy, emergency rescue, hospitals, and communications infrastructure were the sectors that faced the most significant increases in the number of attacks in 2025, as compared to the previous year.
The increase in cyberattacks reflects Beijing’s growing concerns over Taiwan’s political landscape and global positioning. After over four decades of democratization, Taiwan is recognized as the 2nd freest country in Asia. Its thriving chip industry positions it globally as an invaluable economic asset, including in advancing China’s own semiconductor technology. Wary of Taiwan’s rapid political and technological development would make the cross-strait unification less appealing for the people in Taiwan, Beijing has used various tactics to intimidate Taiwan from developing a strong national identity. With advances in technology shaping the evolution of gray zone warfare tactics, cyberattacks have become an integral tool in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s efforts to deter Taiwan from codifying its de facto independence. They are also an important mechanism to test Taiwan’s resilience to a Chinese blockade should Beijing decide to invade.
Cyberattacks Targeting Taiwan’s Political and Diplomatic Engagement
China further intensified cyberattacks on Taiwan following Lai Ching-te’s election as Taiwan’s president in January 2024. Chinese leadership views President Lai as a “separatist” who will drive the island away from Beijing’s ultimate goal of unification under PRC control. Many of Lai’s public statements—such as that “the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other” (during his inauguration speech on May 20, 2024), or that “China should take back the Chinese territory occupied by Russia since the 19th century if China cares about the Chinese territorial integrity” (September 2024)—have been condemned as provocative by the PRC, and even used as justifications for launching military exercises around Taiwan. Launching cyberattacks has become a routine element of the PRC’s strategy to intimidate Taiwanese leadership into not making any political moves signifying Taiwan’s de facto independence: the NSB’s 2025 report recorded peaks in the number of Chinese cyberattacks while President Lai delivered public speeches or traveled abroad for diplomatic activities.
By targeting government services and infrastructure, China intends to weaken the Taiwanese public’s confidence in their government’s ability to protect the country. This aim was further operationalized through the displaying of slogans on hacked websites that claimed cross-strait unification had been accomplished. A survey conducted by the Taiwan Network Information Center in 2024 shows that only 41 percent of respondents in Taiwan believed the government capable of responding to various types of cyberattacks, whereas over 51 percent of them had complete or partial distrust. The targeting of public works infrastructure and incorporation of disinformation as a component of PRC cyberattack methodology emphasizes the severity of this threat to public trust in Taiwan.
Image: A Taiwan Ministry of National Defense “Graphic of Communist Chinese Methods of Cognitive Warfare” conducted online. (Image source: ROC National Defense Report 2021)
China has used cyberattacks to isolate Taiwan from the global community. During former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022, several of Taiwan’s government websites, public transportation websites, and retail sector sites were hacked, their contents replaced with messaging criticizing the Speaker’s visit. Other Western nations with closer ties to Taiwan, like the Czech Republic, have faced increased cyberattacks by Chinese hackers in recent years.
Cyberattacks have become part of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s routine actions against Taiwan, in tandem with the growing number of PLA aircraft crossing either the median line of the Taiwan Strait or Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), from 380 sorties in 2020 to 5,709 in 2025. In the event of an invasion, China might use cyberattacks to interfere with Taiwan’s communications network operations with the outside world—thereby disrupting Taiwan’s defense efforts and delaying international assistance.
A Tool to Sustain Chinese Economic Influence
The PRC leadership believe economic integration across the Taiwan Strait would give China an advantage in exercising political coercion. In recent years, however, China has gradually lost its economic leverage due to declining economic ties across the Strait. According to Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance, China and Hong Kong’s shares in Taiwan’s exports dropped from 44 percent in 2020 to 27 percent in 2025. China accounted for nearly 84 percent of Taiwan’s outward foreign direct investment in 2010; the share declined to less than 4 percent in 2025, according to data from Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and calculations by the author. China’s economic slowdown, due to property market stagnation, low private consumption, and trade tensions with the United States, has further weakened its capability to threaten Taiwan economically. To counterbalance its fading economic influence, cyberattacks have been used more frequently to menace Taiwanese businesses. Chinese hackers might try to extract huge payments for unlocking important data, or even demand political concessions from the Taiwanese government and private companies.
Taiwan’s hardware and semiconductor industry is the most targeted of its sectors. As the largest chip maker in the world, the shutdown of chip plants due to cyberattacks could inflict a significant impact on the global economy, including that of China. Although China might not want to sabotage Taiwan’s semiconductor industry for the sake of its own domestic manufacturing production and economy, it might intend to steal technology information and sensitive business data from Taiwanese semiconductor firms through Chinese hacks. US export control measures have made it increasingly difficult for China to purchase equipment and key components with high-technology intensity from Taiwan, further incentivizing China to find other means to acquire its technology. The loss of intellectual property rights and overseas customer information to Chinese hackers could risk collapsing the entire semiconductor industry in Taiwan. Both Taiwan’s economy and the wider global supply chain network would suffer catastrophically from major disruption toTaiwan’s semiconductor industry.
Taiwan Needs a Strong Cybersecurity Policy to Respond to China’s Surging Cyberthreats
China’s cyberattacks on Taiwan can be traced back over 20 years. Nevertheless, it was not until 2016 that former President Tsai Ing-Wen started to incorporate cybersecurity into Taiwan’s national security strategy. The Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA), established in 2022, is responsible for planning and implementing cybersecurity policies.
Along with the establishment of the cybersecurity department, regulations, and initiatives, the government allocated NT 8.8 billion (about USD 300 million) for its national cybersecurity development program over four years (2025-2028). Despite rising expenditures on cybersecurity over the past few years, it is not sufficient to cope with the increasing volume of cyberattacks. Compared to the top 20 spenders on cybersecurity worldwide, the Taiwanese government’s expenditure (USD 75 million per year from 2025 to 2028) is far behind. A greater cybersecurity budget could reinforce Taiwan’s cyber defense against the growing cyberthreat to Taiwan’s national security.
The shortage of talent in cybersecurity is another concern. Over the past few decades, Taiwan has focused on building hardware manufacturing capacity, but software development is lagging. The lack of talent in cybersecurity poses a challenge to firms in Taiwan, which are increasingly aware of Chinese cyber-threats – and thus growing their investment in securing their business data. In addition to on-the-job training for current employment, expanding talent acquisition from overseas is key in tackling the immediate cyber threat from China.
Greater international cooperation in cybersecurity with like-minded countries is another way to enhance Taiwan’s digital competence and strengthen its national defense. International cooperation can incorporate private business participation, which will assist the cybersecurity industry’s development potential and build Taiwan’s strength from it. For example, the Taiwan Cybersecurity Resiliency Act of 2023 aimed to promote military cybersecurity cooperation between the United States and Taiwan, including protection of military networks and infrastructure, and cybersecurity training activities. Taiwan and Paraguay also concluded a partnership in information security and smart technology, digital governance, and judicial cooperation in May this year. More collaboration with other countries should be promoted.
China’s persistent cyberattacks are an imminent threat to Taiwan’s national security and sovereignty. Taiwan must not hesitate to build up a strong cyber defense system in order to protect its economic assets, public trust, and democratic values.
The main point: Cyberattacks have become an important tool in China’s plans for cross-Strait unification. Through cyberattacks, China aims to intimidate Taiwanese leaders, weaken trust in Taiwan’s government, and maintain its influence over Taiwanese businesses. In order to combat this, Taiwan needs to increase its budget for acquiring cybersecurity talent, hardware, and software, as well as to increase collaboration with other countries to better defend Taiwan’s democracy and economy.
