TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff called for an intelligence report on Chinese interference in Taiwan’s 2020 presidential elections as part of the “Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020” (H.R. 3494), Liberty Times News reports.

The bill, which Rep. Schiff introduced to the House Intelligence Committee on June 26, would provide for the budgets of U.S. intelligence agencies. In one of the sub-sections relating to foreign matters, the bill stipulates that the director of national intelligence will, within 45 days of the upcoming Taiwanese presidential election, submit a report on Chinese efforts to interfere in or undermine” it, as well as recommend actions the U.S. can take to disrupt such operations.

This is the first time that Chinese meddling in Taiwanese elections has been acknowledged in a US intelligence authorization bill.





Adam Schiff official portrait (From United States House of Representatives official website)

According to the bill, the proposed intelligence report should delineate ways the U.S. intelligence community can help Taiwan build on its capacity to identify and counter efforts to sabotage its electoral process by providing technical and material support. The bill also calls for a comprehensive list of Chinese entities, both governmental and non-governmental, that interfere with Taiwan's elections as well as the tactics they employ.

One of the bill's six sub-sections related to foreign matters addresses the Chinese Communist Party's influence within the U.S. Another relates to the ongoing repression of Muslim ethnic minorities in China's western Xinjiang region.