Since August 28, disinformation has been circulating on social media platforms, Chinese content farms, and Taiwanese news media, claiming that Lai was stranded for one day (some disinformation said two days) in Kinmen because of the People’s Liberation Army’s exercise encircling Kinmen. Many of the disinformation posts identically referred to Lai as “rampant and arrogant [囂張]” and used the Chinese idiom “catching a turtle in a jar [甕中捉鱉]” to describe how the Liberation Army successfully confined Lai in Kinmen. The pieces further asserted that if the Liberation Army continued the exercise, Lai would only be imprisoned in Kinmen.
These claims were apparently untrue. According to the Taiwan President’s office and the Kinmen County government, Lai was back in Taipei around 12:30 pm on the same day and later on met with athletes who were going to compete in the Paris Paralympics. Lai’s meeting with the athletes was also broadcast by several news media.
What makes this disinformation particularly intriguing is how Taiwanese political commentators propagated this disinformation claim. These Taiwanese political commentators, who often appear on pro-China TV talk shows or make comments on cross-strait politics on their own online platform channels, were among the first to spread the false claim around the same time in late August.
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**The […] disinformation claims resonated with the main theme of Chinese propaganda: on the one hand, it denounced the idea of Taiwan’s independence and demonized those who defied China; on the other hand, the propaganda was eager to show China’s generosity and its congenial relationship with those who are willing to “return to the Motherland.” **