Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te called for tougher measures to counter increased Chinese attempts at infiltration, spying and other attempts to weaken Taiwan's defences.
News agency AP reported that Lai cited a series of incidents involving China in recent times that fall into the gray area of psychological warfare and said Beijing's efforts to subvert, obtain secrets, lure members of the armed forces and influence public opinion to lose confidence in Taiwan's national defence necessitates that the island nation steps up legal safeguards to prevent and detect such incidents.
"They (China) are carrying out activities such as division, destruction, and subversion from within us," Reuters quoted him as saying.
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"Many are worried that our country, hard-earned freedom and democracy and prosperity will be lost bit by bit due to these influence campaigns and manipulation," he added.
Lai proposed 17 legal and economic countermeasures, including the strict review of visits of Chinese citizens to Taiwan and their residence applications to counter China.
China regularly sends ships and planes into airspace and waters near the island in an effort to intimidate the people and wear down the morale of the armed forces as part of its attempts to force the island to accept Chinese sovereignty.
