Taiwan President Backs Student Warnings Over TikTok, Little Red Book Influence

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te backed high school students’ warnings that TikTok and Little Red Book could shape how young people understand history, China, and democracy, saying Taiwan could lose its will to defend democracy if the problem is not handled properly.

The exchange took place at the 2026 President and Youth Forum, hosted by Business Today magazine in Taipei on May 30. Students from Kang Chiao International School in Linkou proposed strengthening historical reasoning and civic education to help young people evaluate narratives they encounter online.

The students presented a proposal titled “History Education Fosters Independent Thinking About Modern Society and Cultivates Civic Literacy Through Historical Reflection,” which linked information warfare, historical obscuring, and national-security risks to Chinese social media platforms TikTok and Little Red Book.

Lai said he admired the proposal and considered the issue serious.

“If there is no proper response, over time Taiwan people could lose their will to defend democracy,” Lai said. He warned that young people could come to see the Chinese communist regime as harmless, even as Beijing seeks to annex or invade Taiwan, and could lose the will to protect their own country.

The students’ proposal led Lai to direct the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education to make use of the Kang Chiao team’s reasoning-based approach and consider how it could be incorporated into admissions or exams to guide teaching and learning.

Students Urge Historical Reasoning

The forum drew proposals from students across Taiwan. According to Business Today, 47 schools, 59 teams, and 279 students applied to participate. Four teams were selected to present proposals on self-exploration, international exchange, artificial intelligence education, and civic literacy and democratic participation.

The Kang Chiao team—students Tseng Tzu-ming, Liu Chien-hao, Yang Hsien-lei, An Yu-cheng, and Chiu Tzu-yi—presented under the civic literacy and democratic participation category.

Their proposal argued that Taiwan’s history education should move beyond memorization and help students use history to analyze modern public issues. The students said Taiwan should draw on an Advanced Placement-style format to train students in historical reasoning, debate, independent thinking, democratic resilience, and national identity.

The students connected that curriculum proposal to the influence of Chinese platforms. They described TikTok and Little Red Book as creating a “shadowing effect” through algorithm-driven short videos that could cause Taiwanese students to grow accustomed to narratives promoted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Lai said the proposal identified a problem the government had previously approached too narrowly.

He said Taiwan’s response to Little Red Book and TikTok had focused mainly on technical measures to reduce or block outside influence, but the students had raised a deeper educational issue: whether young people have enough historical reasoning to recognize Taiwan clearly and resist false ideas pushed repeatedly through online platforms.

Lai gave three suggestions in response. He said students should be trained through historical reasoning and debate to distinguish right from wrong, deepen their understanding of democracy, and cultivate independent thinking.

National Security Context

Lai’s broader remarks at the forum placed the students’ proposal inside Taiwan’s national-security concerns.

Lai told students that his administration would continue strengthening national security, economic resilience, and cooperation with democratic partners. Lai warned of Chinese military intimidation, political pressure, and United Front infiltration, including efforts to affect Taiwan’s national identity and attract Taiwanese businesses and young people through what China called cross-strait “integrated development” programs.

The Chinese communist regime claims Taiwan as part of China, though it has never ruled the island. Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is self-governed and rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.

Taiwan is also one of the top targets of CCP-linked information manipulation. The Taiwan Information Environment Research Center has documented “U.S. skepticism” narratives in the Mandarin-language information environment, defining them as unreasonable or manipulative narratives that urge Taiwan to distance itself from the United States. The center said such narratives include claims that the United States will abandon Taiwan, cannot protect Taiwan, or is pushing Taiwan toward war and destruction.

The center said its report compiled 84 such narratives related to 12 major events from 2021 through June 2023 and found involvement by Chinese actors and local Taiwanese actors in their creation or amplification. It said the narratives help manufacture negative images of Taiwan’s democratic allies and democratic governance, creating unfounded mistrust toward democracy.

That research gives broader context to the students’ concern that short-form video platforms could affect how young people understand China, Taiwan, and democracy.

Taiwan Already Restricted Little Red Book

Taiwan had already moved against Little Red Book before the forum.

On Dec. 4, 2025, Taiwan’s Interior Ministry announced a one-year temporary restriction on Little Red Book, also known as Xiaohongshu or RedNote, citing fraud, cybersecurity failures, and the platform’s lack of legal compliance in Taiwan.

The ministry said Little Red Book had more than 3 million users in Taiwan, failed all 15 indicators in a National Security Bureau cybersecurity test, and had been linked to 1,706 fraud cases since 2024, causing more than NT$247.68 million (about $7.9 million) in losses.

The ministry said the platform’s China-based parent company had not responded to Taiwan’s request for corrective measures and that law enforcement could not obtain necessary information from the company, creating what the ministry called a “substantial legal vacuum.”

Other Democracies Target Chinese Platform Risks

Taiwan’s concerns over Chinese-linked platforms fit into a wider democratic push to restrict or regulate foreign-controlled and high-risk social media, but Taiwan’s case is sharper because Beijing claims the island and uses military, political, economic, and information pressure against it.

In the United States, the Supreme Court in January 2025 upheld the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act as applied to TikTok. The law made it unlawful for companies in the United States to provide services to distribute, maintain, or update TikTok unless the platform’s U.S. operations were separated from Chinese control.

In the European Union, the European Commission said in February that it had preliminarily found TikTok in breach of the Digital Services Act for addictive design features, including infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and a highly personalized recommender system.

Australia has taken an age-based approach. Its eSafety Commissioner says that, as of Dec. 10, 2025, age-restricted social media platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 from creating or keeping accounts.

Those examples rest on different legal grounds. The U.S. law focuses on foreign-adversary control, the EU case on platform design and user risk, and Australia’s rule on youth access. Taiwan’s concerns combine platform enforcement, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, CCP influence, and whether young people can recognize Beijing-aligned narratives online.