China’s Digital Infiltration: How Beijing Uses Lifestyle Content to Target Taiwan

A sophisticated Chinese propaganda operation has been systematically targeting Taiwan through seemingly innocent lifestyle content on social media, according to a new investigation by Reporters Without Borders. The report, titled “From Wellness to Politics: How China Infiltrates Taiwan’s Lifestyle Facebook Pages Through Digital Marketing,” reveals how the Chinese government has been leveraging wellness and lifestyle pages to subtly insert pro-Beijing messaging.

At the center of this operation is Wubianjie Group, a Chinese digital marketing company headquartered in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province. The firm’s strategy is methodical: build large audiences with politically neutral lifestyle content, operate at scale, and periodically inject pro-Beijing messaging before reverting to innocuous content like recipes and motivational quotes.

During Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election, pages that had previously focused on health tips, hobbies, and inspirational quotes began carrying politically charged content, raising concerns about coordinated influence operations directed from mainland China.

Wang Hong-en, a researcher at the RAND Corporation who has tracked Chinese propaganda networks for years, noted that Wubianjie also runs soft-pornography pages on Facebook used to promote erectile dysfunction medications. In China’s tightly controlled media environment, such dual operations would be impossible without official tolerance or support.

Evidence supports this assessment. In June 2020, the CCP-controlled Qinhuangdao Broadcasting and Television Station publicly announced a strategic partnership with Wubianjie. Four months later, officials from Hebei province’s propaganda department and cyberspace administration visited the company’s offices—unusual developments in China’s tightly managed information landscape.

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau has officially designated Wubianjie as one of the entities the CCP uses to wage “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan. A Taiwanese government official working on information security told Reporters Without Borders that these operations have led some citizens to associate democracy with chaos, making authoritarian rule seem like a tolerable alternative.

“When political content appears alongside familiar, trusted material, the reader’s defenses are lower,” the official explained on condition of anonymity.

Repurposing Taiwan’s Own Voices

A separate investigation reported by Reuters and Radio France Internationale uncovered another dimension of this operation. Beijing has been systematically harvesting criticism of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) from Taiwan’s own political figures and commentators, then amplifying and repackaging that content through state media channels and Chinese social media platforms.

Cheng Li-wen, chairwoman of the opposition Kuomintang party, became Beijing’s most frequently featured Taiwanese representative after recording a video accusing President Lai Ching-te of leading Taiwan’s 23 million people “onto a path to death” through his pursuit of independence. CCP state media pushed the video onto Douyin (Chinese TikTok), from where it circulated to Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms popular in Taiwan.

According to analysis by the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG), CCP state media published approximately 560,000 videos on Douyin in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, with around 18,000 concerning Taiwan-related topics. Researchers identified 57 Taiwanese individuals featured across 2,730 of these videos.

Fitness Celebrity as Propaganda Template

Chen Chih-han, a Taiwanese fitness celebrity known as “The Coach,” has emerged as particularly valuable to Beijing’s propaganda efforts. His content spans three thematic clusters that directly serve Beijing’s messaging goals: suspicion of the United States, hostility toward Japan, and narratives of Taiwan’s failings.

A video Chen posted after visiting mainland China, expressing amazement at China’s development, was processed by CCP state media into a three-act propaganda template: hearing about China’s rise, witnessing it personally, then expressing astonishment. This template has since been applied to other figures and content.

“He is a local celebrity with views that happen to serve Beijing’s purposes. His Taiwanese audience trusts his authenticity. Beijing benefits from that without having to build it,” noted IORG researchers.

Insufficient Defenses

The DPP’s office for China affairs recently warned that the CCP’s information operations, now enhanced by artificial intelligence, have escalated from mere disinformation into systematic erosion of democratic institutions. While the party advocates for media literacy as a defense, civil society organizations like Taiwan Black Bears argue this is insufficient.

“Taiwan currently lacks the funding, institutional mechanisms, and cross-agency coordination needed to mount an effective defense against information warfare at the scale and sophistication the CCP has now achieved,” the organization stated, calling for proactive counter-narrative work rather than reactive analysis.

The DPP has framed Taiwan’s predicament as a warning for democracies worldwide, arguing that Beijing uses Taiwan as a laboratory for information operations, exporting successful methods to other countries once they have been tested and refined. Similar techniques have been documented in Europe, Southeast Asia, and North America, suggesting the global implications of China’s digital infiltration strategies extend far beyond Taiwan’s shores.