Editor's note: Wang Shushen, a special commentator for CGTN, is the deputy director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The Taiwan region will hold its "nine-in-one" local elections on November 28 this year. Although a local election, it is widely seen as a prelude to the 2028 Taiwan "general election" and will have a direct bearing on the future political landscape of the island. Taipei has recently emerged as a major focus of the election, with the contest between incumbent Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, the fourth-generation descendant of the Chiang family, and Shen Pao-yang, a die-hard "Taiwan independence" secessionist, attracting widespread attention.

Shen, who was nominated by Taiwan regional leader Lai Ching-te to represent the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the Taipei mayoral race, is the founder of the Kuma Academy and claims to be an expert in "cognitive warfare." The Kuma Academy is a "green" organization on the island that has vigorously hyped the so-called "threat" from the mainland. It operates as an affiliated organization of the DPP and has aggressively promoted "whole-of-society defense resilience," serving as a spearhead for the DPP in smearing the Chinese mainland, stoking anti-China sentiment and intimidating people on the island.

Recently, the green camp has gone all out to package Shen, "resetting" his image as that of a "rational and moderate" member of a new generation of political workers, thereby creating and amplifying a so-called "Shen current." The emergence of this phenomenon has, on the one hand, rallied and stimulated enthusiasm among green-camp supporters to participate in campaign activities, while also influencing some centrist voters with less pronounced party affiliations.

In fact, Shen was officially named by the mainland authorities in 2024 as a "staunch Taiwan separatist." He has long received funding from the United States to conduct civil defense training and "cognitive warfare" activities on the island, and last year he actively promoted the campaign for a mass recall targeting the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party, making him a highly controversial political figure. As the election campaign in the Taiwan region becomes increasingly fierce, the "mask" Shen has created is bound to be further exposed by the KMT.

In recent years, amid the DPP's populist mobilization, the "anti-China, protect Taiwan" card has become an indispensable tool used by the Taiwan authorities to manipulate elections. Shen is a typical representative of this approach. He has participated in developing "cognitive warfare" strategies targeting the mainland and building a civil defense industry chain on the island, earning himself three major labels: The Kuma Academy, the mass recall campaign and "cognitive warfare."

However, because the green camp has overplayed this card, its marginal effect in Taiwan's political arena has declined sharply. Taiwan media analyses suggest that although the "Shen current" appears powerful on the surface, it is essentially a forceful backlash by the "Bluebirds" – young people who are ardent supporters of the DPP – following their setbacks in last year's mass recall campaign. It is, in essence, an intensified manifestation of the green camp's "echo chamber."

As Shen and the Kuma Academy have become increasingly extreme in their actions, their aggressive rhetoric and conduct have come under growing criticism and questioning on the island. A closer look shows that the starting point of Shen's "cognitive-warfare" logic is to grossly exaggerate the threat posed by the Chinese mainland, to the point where the threat is portrayed as virtually unlimited and omnipresent. Beyond traditional "threats" in the realm of military security, he has also brought everyday life, social interactions and public policy discussions in Taiwan into the framework of the so-called mainland "threat."

As a result, Taiwan political representatives, village and neighborhood chiefs, Taiwan business people, temples and shrines, and mainland spouses living in Taiwan who have contacts and exchanges with the mainland have all become targets for Shen's "cognitive warfare" scrutiny and suppression.

Such tactics amount to nothing more than spreading fabricated sources of danger on the island, creating public anxiety over security, drawing people's attention to "anti-China" issues and then launching social and political mobilization in order to win votes for the DPP. This is not a positive political strategy that offers a vision for the future. Rather, it is a negative ploy designed to generate hatred, filled with calculations aimed at pursuing "Taiwan independence." It is little wonder that a popular saying on the island describes the DPP as "fake democracy and real dictatorship."

As is well known, normal cross-Strait exchanges are an important condition for both sides to increase mutual understanding and reduce misunderstandings. Yet the DPP and its affiliated organization, the Kuma Academy, have distorted cross-Strait exchanges into supposed risk traps for Taiwan. They have repeatedly disregarded facts while hyping the risks faced by Taiwan residents who travel to the mainland for study, employment and daily life, stepping up "cognitive warfare" against people on the island and portraying the mainland as an "external hostile force."

But this cannot stop cross-Strait exchanges. According to statistics from the Taiwan side, nearly 2.5 million visits by Taiwan residents to the mainland were recorded from January to August this year, an increase of 19.63% from the same period last year. The movement of people across the Strait has thus remained at a considerable scale and continues to grow.

Cross-Strait economic and trade ties have likewise been viewed by the DPP as an obstacle to its "Taiwan independence" agenda. In recent years, the Taiwan authorities have particularly pushed a "non-Red supply chain" policy, hysterically portraying goods and components produced on the mainland as security risks to Taiwan and repeatedly taking measures to remove mainland supply chains from the island. What they fail to understand is that economic and trade relations have their own inherent laws, and administrative intervention by the DPP cannot alter the overall direction of cross-Strait economic and trade development.

The mainland possesses advantages that Taiwan does not, including its enormous market, complete industrial and supply chains, and new quality productive forces. Taiwan's economic development cannot be separated from the vast hinterland of the mainland. The Taiwan authorities' attempt to securitize economic issues will only harm the vital interests of Taiwan, particularly those of people at the grassroots level.

What constitutes Taiwan's genuine security, and what constitutes false security? This is a question that deserves deep reflection across all sectors of society on the island. Genuine and lasting security requires the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to establish sound interaction on the basis of a common political foundation, reduce mutual suspicion and misjudgment, and thereby build effective mechanisms for communication and consultation to prevent conflict.

The starting point for resolving this issue should be putting the people first, while the ultimate goal should be to promote the well-being of people on both sides of the Strait. The "Taiwan independence" forces, however, specialize in fabricating various excuses to oppose normal cross-Strait exchanges and challenge the one-China principle. Any attempt to undermine cross-Strait relations in the name of "security" will only make Taiwan even more insecure.

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