Estonian parlt committee chair: China spreading similar narrative about Ukraine as Russia

TALLINN – Chairman of the Estonian parliament's foreign affairs committee Marko Mihkelson, who recently visited Taiwan together with his Baltic colleagues, said that the narratives of China and Russia regarding the war in Ukraine are similar.

While in Taipei, Mihkelson visited civil society organization FactCheck, which deals with combating fake news and promoting media literacy among residents.

"One big topic for them is the Russia-Ukraine war, regarding which China is actively trying to spread a narrative similar to Russia's," Mihkelson wrote on social media. "However, China is trying to instill in the people of Taiwan that they are alone and that no one will come to their aid. We have a lot of common experience to share with them and learn from each other in the field of the resilience of a democratic society."

According to Mihkelson, 90 percent of the people of Taiwan do not want to change the existing status quo in any way -- so they also do not want to join China. However, all this does not prevent China from using all the possibilities of social media and artificial intelligence to carry out influence activities.

He added that Taiwan knows very well how dangerous the massive influence activities of an authoritarian regime in spreading fake news and hostile narratives and in intelligence activities can be.

"China is probably channeling billions to win the hearts of the people of Taiwan and force the democratic society to submit to Chinese pressure for a 'peaceful' unification," Mihkelson writes in his post.