Possible Psychological Warfare on Taiwan

A Taiwanese analyst suggested that China could wreck havoc on Taiwan by dispatching "boat people", or economic refugees.

Quoted by Denny Roy, the analyst reportedly said that 100 boatloads would be enough to cause the same kind of capital flight and a downturn in the stock market that resulted from the missile exercises of 1995-96.

Termed "psychological warfare", Roy noted that the "soft weapon" of a flood of poor Chinese could quickly overwhelm Taiwan social services networks and drain the island's economy.

"Even if the boat people came in small numbers, Taiwan would immediately understand that China could send more, drawing on a huge supply, and that Taiwan could not stop them all." (Denny Roy, "Taiwan's Threat Perceptions: The Enemy Within," Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, March 2003)

Sounds like a brilliant, yet scary idea, which I guess is the point after all.

Which reminds me of a hip western restaurant in Beijing that once suffered the same fate when it "offended" certain people. The retaliation, it seemed, was that dozens of peasants were dispatched to the restaurant to do two things - 1) sit wordlessly at the tables with their drinks, and 2) look sullen. Of course, urban customers who entered the restaurant were terrified by what they saw, and left the restaurant almost immediately.

The restaurant, in turn, lost their earnings for the day and learnt that they were at the mercy of someone more powerful. So without firing a shot or issuing a verbal threat, the intimidation had achieved what it set out to accomplish.