October 26: CCP Political Warfare and the 2024 Elections

Thursday, October 26, 2023 from 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM (ET)

In-Person (RSVP here) and Webcast

Event Description:

The Global Taiwan Institute (GTI) is pleased to invite you to a public seminar entitled “CCP Political Warfare and the 2024 Elections,” presented in collaboration with the Prospect Foundation. For both Taiwan and the United States, 2024 is shaping up to be pivotal year. In less than three months, Taiwan will hold its 2024 presidential election, followed by the United States’ own election in November. Already, political candidates in both democracies have begun jockeying for position, marking out policy positions and forging critical alliances. Amid this competition, however, an old threat has emerged once again: authoritarian political warfare. Determined to undermine democratic processes and sow distrust in political institutions, both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Russia have escalated their influence campaigns against the United States and Taiwan. While these efforts are by no means a new phenomenon, they have grown substantially more sophisticated and insidious in recent years, posing a significant risk to the upcoming elections. This threat has only grown more pronounced over the past several years, as CCP and Russian political warfare efforts appear to be increasingly coordinated and mutually reinforcing.
 
For Taiwan, the United States, and other democracies around the world, these authoritarian influence operations represent a critical challenge. More than ever, a unified and coordinated response is necessary. What can the world learn from Taiwan’s ongoing efforts to combat foreign malign influence? How can democracies better cooperate to enhance their collective resilience against CCP and Russian political warfare? What sorts of narratives are the most effective in countering authoritarian disinformation? This panel will confront these questions and more, with the goal of providing recommendations for Taiwan and the United States as they enter a potentially momentous political year.
 
Panelists will include: Dr. I-Chung Lai (The Prospect Foundation), Yang Kuang-Shun (Taiwan Information Environment Research Center [IORG]), Craig Singleton (Foundation for Defense of Democracies), and John Dotson (Global Taiwan Institute). The event will be moderated by GTI Executive Director Russell Hsiao.

The event will be held at the GTI office located at 1836 Jefferson Place NW in Washington DC (approximately one block from the Dupont Circle Metro). Doors will open at 11:30 AM, and the event will begin at 12:00 PM. If you plan on attending in-person, please RSVP by October 24, as seating is limited. A light lunch will be provided. Please direct questions or concerns to Program Manager Marshall Reid at mreid@globaltaiwan.org.

**Media: Please contact Marshall Reid at mreid@globaltaiwan.org if you would like to bring additional crew members or equipment, so that we can be sure to accommodate you.

The Speakers:

Dr. I-Chung Lai is the president of the Prospect Foundation, a Taiwan-based think tank. Prior to joining the Prospect Foundation, he held several prominent positions within the Democratic Progressive Party, serving as executive director of the DPP Mission to the United States and as the director general of the Department of International Affairs. He has also worked as a special assistant with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo.

Yang Kuang-shun is a researcher at the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG), a co-founder of US Taiwan Watch, and an advisor to the Foundation for Future Generation. Yang was a non-resident fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, focusing on topics related to Taiwan’s military readiness. He also advocated for Taiwanese issues on Capitol Hill as a research intern at the Formosan Association for Public Affairs. Yang holds graduate degrees in political science from Tunghai University, Northeastern University, and Arizona State University, as well as a BA in foreign languages and literatures from the National Taiwan University.

Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he analyzes great power competition with China. He previously spent more than a decade serving in a series of sensitive national security roles with the US government, where he primarily focused on East Asia. In that capacity, Singleton regularly briefed federal law enforcement, US military personnel, foreign governments, congressional oversight committees, and the White House on a wide range of issues, including China’s overseas military expansion, Chinese malign influence, and North Korea. Singleton is a regular contributor to outlets such as Foreign Policy, The Hill, Defense News, Newsweek, The National Interest, The Diplomat, Real Clear Defense, The Wall Street Journal, Axios, Yahoo, CNBC, NBC News, and Fox News. Singleton received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Florida and his master’s degree in international policy from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.

John Dotson is the deputy director at GTI. A former US Navy officer and professional staff member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, he has performed extensive writing and research on a range of political and national security issues related to US policy in East Asia, to include Chinese propaganda and influence efforts, military-civil fusion efforts within the People’s Liberation Army, and patterns in military coercion efforts directed against Taiwan. He is a proficient Mandarin linguist, who has performed extensive original research in indigenous Chinese language sources. Dotson holds an MA in national security studies from the US Naval War College, and a Master of International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins-SAIS.

Moderator:

Russell Hsiao is the executive director of GTI, senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation, and adjunct fellow at Pacific Forum. He is a former Penn Kemble fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy and visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia. He previously served as a senior research fellow at The Project 2049 Institute and national security fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Prior to those positions he was the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation from October 2007 to July 2011 and a special associate in the International Cooperation Department at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. While in law school, he clerked within the Office of the Chairman at the Federal Communications Commission and the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center at the Office of the US Trade Representative. Hsiao received his JD and certificate from the Law and Technology Institute at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Catholic University’s Journal of Law and Technology. He received a BA in international studies from the American University’s School of International Service and the University Honors Program.