China’s rattling propaganda machine is in overdrive, or underdrive, or both in response to the ROC government’s ban of the use of the CCP-controlled DeepSeek AI app in government agencies and public schools.
The policy of the smaller country is motivated “by ‘fear of China’ and ‘anti-China’ mentality, and [the ROC is] using information security as an excuse, Beijing says” (“Beijing slams Taiwan’s ‘absurd’ DeepSeek ban, dismisses security fears,” South China Morning Post, February 12, 2025).
Golly. The people and government of the Republic of China, afraid—afraid—of the government of the People’s Republic of China? And antagonistic to it? How could that be? The PRC has been nothing but supportive, nyet?
Fear is an emotion “caused by anticipation or awareness of danger” (Merriam-Webster). If the danger is real, accusing the targets of having a justified and standard emotional response to it, or of using the fact of the danger as an “excuse” to react to the danger, falls flat as an accusation.
DeepSeek censors the truth about the Chinese state’s actions. DeepSeek spreads Chinese Communist Party propaganda. CCP-sponsored, CCP-controlled DeepSeek harvests user data, data to which the Chinese government has access.
The charge of being “anti” the country government constantly attacking you also falls into the category of true-but-so-what.
The indictment would strike with all the force of an overboiled wet noodle even if DeepSeek represented the first ever PRC attack on the ROC. But the DeepSeek bot’s incursions occur in conjunction with a long list of other assaults, from cyberattacks, espionage, and threats to execute Taiwanese “separatists” to continuous breaches of the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Get a grip, Chinese Communist Party. You’re babbling.
