Taiwanese authorities have condemned the Chinese Communist Party for disregarding the values of human rights after one of the Taiwanese lawmakers was doxxed by the Chinese state-run media.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs said on Sunday (Jan. 4), that Meta and Google at its request had removed the satellite photos and related social media posts and videos of the residence and work locations of lawmaker Puma Shen, a legislator of Taiwan’s ruling party Democratic Progress Party.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, in a statement issued on Jan. 3, called on Beijing to remove the satellite photos and related content from Chinese sites.
The council stated, “The Chinese Communist Party’s tolerance of its state media engaging in this kind of illegal and unruly ‘digital violence’ not only fails to contribute to the positive development of cross-strait relations, but also exposes its ignorance of the rule of law and human rights.”
The council also called on Beijing to issue an apology to Shen.
The satellite images were originally posted on Jan. 1 by a Chinese influencer on Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, with a warning directed at Shen saying, “Let’s see where you can run.”
The Weibo post was later shared by several Chinese state-run media outlets, including Straits Today, a television program owned by the state-owned Fujian Media Group.
Shen shared in his Facebook a screenshot of a Facebook post by Straits Today that reproduced the original Weibo message and photos.
Shen said he was targeted by what he called a Chinese “precision attack” because Beijing failed to intimidate Taiwanese people through its recent military drills encircling Taiwan, as evidenced by the island’s strong performance in the local stock market.
Shen said he chose to ignore the doxxing for three days because he believed Beijing wanted him to panic and respond to the satellite photos. He said that if he had reacted, Beijing would have released clearer images to create the impression that their informants were everywhere.
“This kind of psychological warfare is ineffective in Taiwan,” Shen wrote, adding that Beijing’s move actually revealed its “collective inferiority complex toward democratic Taiwan.”
Following the doxxing incident, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the act as a “malicious attempt to intimidate the people of Taiwan and conduct long-arm jurisdiction and transnational repression.”
“Such behavior clearly shows that the Beijing authorities have no regard for the fundamental values of human rights and privacy common in civilized nations,” the foreign ministry said in a news release.
The foreign ministry urged the international community to join in condemning China for its “inappropriate efforts.”
