Posted: September 27th, 2026 | Author: Domingo | Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Disinformation, Geopolitics | Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, China, Disinformation, geopolitics, Rashomon Effect, Taiwan | Comments Off on The Rashomon Strait: The Generative-AI Cognitive War Between China and Taiwan
Let’s start with the figure that runs every headline: in 2025, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau detected 2.3 million pieces of disinformation coming from China —7% more than the year before— and over 45,000 fake accounts, up 61%. Video churned out on a production line. Voices cloned from recordings that Taiwanese citizens handed over without knowing it, answering fake job ads. Welcome to cognitive warfare with generative artificial intelligence! Industrial, cheap and, above all, personalized.
Because it is in that last adjective that the real novelty lies. In August 2025 the internal files of GoLaxy leaked —a Chinese company that had built something called, irony aside, a Smart Propaganda System. What does it do? It doesn’t fire the same message at millions of people: it reads social-media sentiment in real time, sorts more than a thousand Taiwanese public figures into “hardliners,” “moderates” and “swing voters,” and serves each group —each individual— the hoax that best fits their fears. Not propaganda by loudspeaker. Propaganda by sniper.
None of this came out of nowhere. Anyone who followed the story will remember the January 2024 presidential election: AI-forged audio accusing the ruling-party candidate of having once been an informant, or a counterfeit Terry Gou endorsing his rival for the KMT nomination (Hou Yu-ih) —a case laid out in the Microsoft Digital Defense Report. Or the synthetic avatars of the Weta365 app, tied to the Spamouflage network, spreading “the secret history of Tsai Ing-wen,” something documented by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Two years on, that looks like the prototype. This is already the assembly line.
And what does Beijing make of all this? On 14 January 2026, two days after the Taiwanese report, the spokeswoman for the Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhu Fenglian, didn’t beat around the bush: the report “distorts the facts and smears the mainland,” and the one waging cognitive warfare —the habitual offender, she said— is in fact Taiwan’s own Democratic Progressive Party. The disinformation? The report’s. The bot armies? Taipei’s, aimed at the mainland. China’s embassy in France had already told the Institut de recherche stratégique de l’École militaire (IRSEM) the very same thing when it exposed Beijing’s influence networks: “Cold War mentality,” “defamation,” and the Chinese government “doesn’t need to hire anyone.” All spontaneous, of course.
This has a name, and a cultured one —like everyone reading this post: the Rashomon effect, after Kurosawa’s film in which a single crime is told in four incompatible versions and every one of them rings true. In the Taiwan Strait each side points to the other as the great manipulator. And the fascinating part isn’t deciding who is lying —that, precisely, is the trap— but that the very quarrel over who is spreading disinformation has become the battlefield. The noise is the weapon. Pure cognitive warfare.
That said, time to put on our analyst’s hat: after 2.3 million lies, cloned voices and algorithmic snipers, how many people actually changed their minds? The answer, awkward for alarmists and cynics alike, is: we don’t know, and the little we do know points to less than it seems. Surveys by DoubleThink Lab —Taiwanese, and hardly suspected of going soft on Beijing— find correlation, not causation: pro-China hoaxes land better among those already leaning toward the opposition, and slide off everyone else. The machine hardens the convinced and rarely converts the skeptic. Facing it, a Taiwanese civil society that fact-checks, debunks and laughs (what wonderful news: humor as firewall) with an effectiveness that would put half of Europe to shame.
Here’s the light, if these lines bring any: the capacity to produce disinformation with generative AI is real, proven, and growing at double digits a year. Its effect on what people believe and do is, for now, the great unknown. Strong upstream, weak downstream. Mistaking the first for the second —taking for granted that manufacturing lies equals winning minds— is the error that separates analysis from panic. Taiwan is today our best test bed.
That China —and plenty of others— spreads disinformation with generative AI: little doubt about it. That this suffices to bend a democracy practiced by a people with critical thinking, who know their neighbor all too well: no proof. Between those two terms —AI-made disinformation and critical thinking— much of this century’s geopolitics will be decided.
Posted: September 27th, 2026 | Author: Domingo | Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Disinformation, Geopolitics | Tags: China, Desinformación, Efecto Rashomon, Geopolítica, inteligencia artificial, Taiwán | Comments Off on El estrecho de Rashomon: la guerra cognitiva con IA generativa entre China y Taiwán
El estrecho de Rashomon: la guerra cognitiva con IA generativa entre China y Taiwán
Empecemos por el dato que abre todos los titulares: en 2025 la Oficina de Seguridad Nacional de Taiwán detectó 2,3 millones de piezas de desinformación procedentes de China, un 7 % más que el año anterior, y más de 45.000 cuentas falsas, un 61 % más. Vídeo generado en cadena. Voces clonadas a partir de grabaciones que ciudadanos taiwaneses cedieron, sin saberlo, respondiendo a falsas ofertas de empleo. Bienvenidos a la guerra cognitiva con inteligencia artificial generativa. Pasen y vean: industrial, barata y, sobre todo, personalizada.
Porque en este último adjetivo está la novedad de verdad. En agosto de 2025 se filtraron los documentos de GoLaxy, una empresa china que había construido algo llamado, ironías aparte, Sistema de Propaganda Inteligente. ¿En qué consiste este sistema? No dispara un mismo mensaje a millones de personas: lee el sentimiento de las redes sociales en tiempo real, clasifica a más de mil figuras taiwanesas en “duros”, “moderados” e “indecisos”, y sirve a cada grupo, a cada individuo, el bulo que mejor encaja con sus miedos. No es propaganda de altavoz. Es propaganda de francotirador.
Nada de esto salió de la nada. Quien siguiera el asunto recordará las presidenciales de enero de 2024: audios falsos fabricados con IA que acusaban al candidato del partido gobernante de haber sido informante, o un Terry Gou de pega respaldando a su rival por la nominación del KMT (Hou Yu-ih), asunto expuesto en el Microsoft Digital Defense Report. O los avatares sintéticos de la app Weta365, ligada a la red Spamouflage, difundiendo “la historia secreta de Tsai Ing-wen”, algo que documentó el Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Dos años después, aquello parece el prototipo. Esto ya es la cadena de montaje.
¿Y qué piensa Pekín de todo esto? El 14 de enero de 2026, dos días después del informe taiwanés, la portavoz de la Oficina para Asuntos de Taiwán, Zhu Fenglian, no se anduvo con medias tintas: el informe “distorsiona los hechos y difama al continente”, y el que practica la guerra cognitiva —el “reincidente”, dijo— es en realidad el propio Partido Democrático Progresista taiwanés. ¿La desinformación? La del informe. ¿Los ejércitos de bots? Los de Taipéi, apuntando a la China continental. La Embajada china en Francia ya le había soltado lo mismo al Institut de recherche stratégique de l’École militaire (IRSEM), cuando éste destapó sus redes de influencia: “mentalidad de Guerra Fría”, “difamación”, y el gobierno chino “no necesita contratar a nadie”. Todos espontáneos, oigan.
Esto tiene nombre y es culto, como todos los que leen este post: el efecto Rashomon, por la película de Kurosawa en la que un mismo crimen se cuenta en cuatro versiones incompatibles y todas suenan sinceras. En el estrecho de Taiwán cada bando señala al otro como el gran manipulador. Y lo fascinante no es decidir quién miente, ésa precisamente es la trampa, sino que la propia disputa sobre quién desinforma se ha convertido en el campo de batalla. El ruido es el arma. Pura guerra cognitiva.
No obstante, ahora toca ponernos la gorra de analista: después de 2,3 millones de mentiras, voces clonadas y francotiradores algorítmicos, ¿cuánta gente cambió de opinión? La respuesta, incómoda para alarmistas y cínicos por igual, es: no lo sabemos y lo poco que sabemos apunta a menos de lo que parece. Las encuestas del DoubleThink Lab, taiwanés y nada sospechoso de blandura con Pekín, encuentran correlación, no causalidad: los bulos pro-chinos calan más entre quienes ya simpatizaban con la oposición, y resbalan sobre los demás. La máquina refuerza al convencido y rara vez convierte al escéptico. Enfrente, una sociedad civil taiwanesa que verifica, desmiente y se ríe (¡qué gran noticia, el humor como cortafuegos!) con una eficacia que sonroja a media Europa.
Aquí está la luz, si es que aportan alguna estas líneas: la capacidad de producir desinformación con IA generativa es real, está probada y crece a dos cifras al año. Su efecto sobre lo que la gente cree y hace es, de momento, la gran incógnita. Fuerte aguas arriba, débil aguas abajo. Confundir lo primero con lo segundo, dar por hecho que fabricar mentiras equivale a ganar mentes, es el error que separa el análisis del pánico. Taiwán es hoy nuestro mejor banco de pruebas.
Que China (y otros muchos) desinforma con IA generativa, poca duda cabe de ello. Que eso baste para doblegar a una democracia practicada por un pueblo con pensamiento crítico, que conoce muy bien a su vecino: ninguna prueba. Entre esos dos términos, desinformación mediante IA generativa y pensamiento crítico, se juega buena parte de la geopolítica de este siglo.
Posted: March 18th, 2022 | Author: Domingo | Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Book Summaries, Realpolitik | Tags: artificial intelligence, China, geopolitics, techno-socialism | Comments Off on China: Techno-socialism Seasoned with Artificial Intelligence
“People take the great ruler for granted and are oblivious to his presence.The good ruler is loved and acclaimed by his subjects. The mediocre ruler is universally feared. The bad ruler is generally despised. Because he lacks credibility, the subjects do not trust him. On the other hand, the great ruler seldom issues orders. Yet he appears to accomplish everything effortlessly. To his subjects everything he does is just a natural occurrence.“
Tao-T-Ching, Lao-Ts
Anyone who wants to learn something about China today, to know its strategic plan between now and 2050, the means to achieve it, and what drives this country in this titanic effort, should read the book El gran sueo de China: tecno-socialismo y capitalismo de estado by Claudio F. Gonzlez.
Claudio F. Gonzlez, PhD in engineering and economist, has lived in China, as director of Asia for the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), for six years. During this time he has been involved in the fields of education, entrepreneurship, research and innovation in the Asian giant. From this privileged vantage point he has been able to observe, analyze, and understand the complexity of this country.
According to the author, throughout the 20th century, the Western world looked at China with the condescension that is due to a former empire in decline and mired in chaos, power struggles, and poverty, and only in the last decades of the past century, as a market of great potential and a cheap manufacturer of limited quality. Nonetheless, China had -and has- its plan, the ultimate goal of which is returning the “Empire of the Center” to the place it has held for most of human history. Namely: being the most socially and technologically advanced nation and, from there, regaining world leadership in the economic, commercial, and cultural spheres.
In 2015, the government announced the first of its grand plans – Made in China 2025, with the goal of making China by this date a leader in industries such as robotics, semiconductor manufacturing, electronic vehicles, renewable energy and, of course, artificial intelligence.
Initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) or institutions such as the Asian Infrastructures Investment Bank (AIIB) are nothing more than instruments through which China wants to reshape an international order that is more favorable to its new interests. One of China’s stated goals is that by 2035 it wants to be the country that globally sets the next standards in areas such as AI, 5G or the Internet of Things.
China’s successes in the digital economy are based on three main factors:
1. A market that is both huge in size and young, which allows for the rapid commercialization of new business models and equally allows for a high level of experimentation.
2. An increasingly rich and varied innovation ecosystem that goes far beyond a few large and famous companies.
3. And a strong government support, which provides favorable economic and regulatory conditions, and also acts as a venture capital investor, a consumer of products based on new technologies and produced by local companies, and allows access to data that are key to developing new solutions in conditions that are unthinkable in other regions.
Professor F. Gonzlez calls this model techno-socialism or state capitalism.
What are the defining characteristics of this techno-socialist model?
China intends to harness the interest in technological development of its own industry to align it with government interests. The overall goal is, starting from what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) calls a moderately prosperous socialist society, to catch up with and surpass the most developed Western countries, ideally by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (2049). Socialism in the sense of the Chinese regime is no longer socialism in the traditional sense of ownership and collective management of the means of production, a political conception definitively defeated after Mao’s demise; but its control and coordination to achieve social objectives.
The features that characterize this techno-socialism are those of complete physical security for people and things, the absence of extreme poverty, full employment, and the possibility for the most industrious to obtain economic and prestige rewards for their efforts, as long as they are aligned with the objectives established by the party and do not put its dominion at the least risk. This techno-socialism tries to lead society as a whole towards a centrality of thought that avoids extremisms that destroy peace and social security, and that do not call into question the leadership and omnipotent dominance of the party.
The alignment between business interests -or those of other institutions- and public interests, as interpreted by the party, creates a unique innovation ecosystem in which companies capable of promoting solutions for a broad user base become champions of an industrial policy. Once this status is achieved, and always within the logic of interest alignment, they will gain access to a whole arsenal of measures -subsidies, tax reductions, preferential treatment-, to maintain this position and, if possible, extend it internationally, since they are no longer merely companies, but ambassadors of a new model. In the particular case of artificial intelligence, the government has contributed with the necessary conditions -strategies, plans, regulation, space for experimentations- and practical support -venture capital, public procurement, permissions to access data-, for innovations in this field to follow. Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu set up research centers, deploy applications, enroll human capital, and support CCP policies.
Will techno-socialism be able to generate enough disruptive innovations to give the technology created in China an entity of its own?
Between 2015 and 2018, the venture capital funded more than 1 trillion to new technology start-ups in China. China has more unicorns -companies less than ten years old with a valuation above $1 billion- than any other country. In terms of research, China is already the country with the most scientific articles, surpassing the US, although it is true that its impact is still minor, the gap is rapidly closing. It turns out that it has been the state the one which, with its research grants, scholarships and universities, has generated ideas that, because of their risk, private initiative would never have dared to finance. Hence, in this sense, public authorities that nurture alternative ways of thinking are the true engine of progress.
Professor F. Gonzlez names this innovation paradigm applicable to China as asymmetric triple helix model, in which the national government controls the overall innovation context through its top- down policies and plans but, at the same time, allows a certain level of autonomy for district, local and regional governments to conduct their own experiments and accommodate innovations that emerge from the bottom up. Large companies, start-ups, and finance companies are aligned with government interests. And universities and research centers similarly align themselves with government objectives in producing new knowledge and generating talent in the form of human capital.
And eventually, when will China achieve and assume the role of world leader?
From the author’s standpoint China, due to a set of inconsistencies and structural gaps, is neither ready nor willing to assume the global leadership in the foreseeable future. However, it does claim to be the most powerful and influential economy, with the most cohesive society and the least contested domestic leadership that will enable it to become something like the best country in a fragmented world. China’s current strength lies in the existence of a long-term plan: a sense of destiny that ties in with its imperial past. There is a deep conviction in Chinese society, a determination, which is the key force to achieve these strategic objectives.
China does not want to be a powerful nation, but deserves it.
Posted: November 14th, 2010 | Author: Domingo | Filed under: Realpolitik | Tags: Aung San Suu Kyi, Birmania, China, Myanmar | Comments Off on De Myanmar o Birmania
Ayer se hacía eco la prensa escrita de la liberación de Aung San Suu Kyi, premio Nobel de la paz en 1991, después de ni se sabe cuánto tiempo privada de libertad. Lo de Birmania, a estas alturas del espectáculo, parece de chiste sino fuera por las humillaciones, los horrores y la miseria que han de sufrir sus habitantes.
Hace cuatro años tuvimos la oportunidad de pasar algo más de 15 días en aquel país y fue uno de los viajes más interesantes que hemos hecho.
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