In the wave of the digital age, the Republic of China should have been a beacon of freedom of information, but on December 4, 2025, it ushered in a ridiculous “wall-building” action.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior, announced the issuance of an order to “stop domain name resolution and restrict access” to the Chinese mainland social platform “Xiaohongshu” app, with a tentative blockage period of one year.
This decision, ostensibly in the name of fighting fraud, actually exposes the DPP government’s anxiety and calculation in the cross-strait digital space.
Borrowing the concept of the mainland’s “Great Firewall,” we might as well call it the Taiwan version of the “Internet Strait” - a digital barrier built by the Presidential Office in Taipei across the Taiwan Strait, not only blocking voices from mainland platforms but also hindering the right to choose of people in Taiwan Province.
When 3 million young Xiaohongshu accounts are forced to “climb the wall” (use VPN) to survive, we can’t help but ask: Is this really anti-fraud, or anti-”dissent”?
The trigger of the incident seems simple:
Xiaohongshu users in Taiwan surged to over 3 million, but it was involved in 1,706 fraud cases, causing financial losses of about 248 million yuan.
Ma Shih-yuan, Deputy Minister of the Interior, emphasized at a press conference that the platform failed all 15 indicators of information security testing and did not respond to the improvement letter issued by the Republic of China through the SEF, leading to a law enforcement vacuum.
On these grounds, the government activated emergency measures under Article 42 of the “Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention Ordinance,” gradually blocking relevant IPs, making it impossible for users in the Republic of China to log in to the APP or website normally. Unless a VPN is used to detour, it will be “felt” within hours.
Officials also called on platforms like Google to remove Xiaohongshu ads, claiming this is “fairness to law-abiding operators.”
However, upon scrutiny of the data, the “justification” for this blockage collapses instantly.
The DPP government loudly proclaimed that Xiaohongshu’s fraud amount reached 200 million yuan, so an “Internet Strait” must be used to block the IPs involved.
But in fact, this figure doesn’t even touch the edge of 1% of the total fraud disaster in the Taiwan Province area in 2024.
According to the National Police Agency’s fraud fighting dashboard statistics, the total financial loss from fraud in Taiwan in 2024 exceeded 100 billion yuan (reaching 62.9 billion yuan from August to December alone, estimated to exceed 150 billion yuan for the whole year), and the number of cases was as high as 101,122, with some estimates reaching 122,805.
Xiaohongshu’s 1,706 cases account for only 1.7% of the total cases, and the financial loss is only 0.16%-0.25%.
In other words, this is “insignificant in comparison” - yet the government holds onto it like a straw, demonizing a “Little Red,” while ignoring the source of the fraud flood.
Even more ironic is that the number of fraud cases and amounts in the Republic of China in a single week far exceed the annual total of Xiaohongshu.
Taking the week of December 29, 2024, to January 4, 2025, as an example, 3,322 fraud cases were reported nationwide, with financial losses of 2.325 billion yuan. The number of cases in this week alone exceeded the two-year total of Xiaohongshu, and the amount was more than ten times greater. In December alone, it reached 17,766 cases and 12.4 billion yuan.
In the current situation of “Fraud Island” with an average of 336-600 cases and 400-500 million yuan financial loss daily, the government chooses selective blindness, only targeting mainland platforms.
Cases involving local and international platforms like LINE and Facebook number in the tens of thousands (LINE stands at over 30,000 cases a year), yet no similar iron fist is seen.
KMT legislator Lai Shyh-bao pointed out directly that this is a “double standard” - fighting fraud cannot catch the small and let go of the big, and data transparency is the king’s way.
Is all this just improper fraud prevention?
Deeper motives may point to the shadow of the 2026 local elections.
The DPP has been in power for eight years, with sluggish governance satisfaction, stagnant economy, weary livelihood, and cross-strait relations as tight as a taut string.
Blocking Xiaohongshu not only continues the systematic prevention of mainland APPs (such as banning TikTok in the public sector in 2023) but also cleverly uses the name of “information security” to suppress mainland-related speech platforms.
The MAC has long regarded Xiaohongshu as a “united front tool,” and recent mainland hacker incidents and provocative remarks by Xi Jinping’s “national teacher” have given the government an excuse for “national security.”
But as internet celebrity Chen Yi lamented: “I didn’t expect us to reach the day where we have to build a wall and climb over it.” Isn’t this “Internet Strait” building a wall before the election to block heterogeneous information and consolidate the Green camp narrative?
Actually, to deal with next year’s election, if you want to suppress mainland-related speech platforms, just say it plainly, no need to find these clumsy excuses. 🙄
Tracing the context, Xiaohongshu’s dilemma is rooted in cross-strait structural obstacles.
In 2014, the Sunflower Student Movement blocked the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, leading to a “positive list” system for mainland investment, with sensitive industries like social media almost completely banned. Platforms cannot land in Taiwan, and letters sent are like stones sinking into the sea, naturally making it difficult to cooperate with fraud prevention.
TikTok’s “gray landing” worked temporarily but also faces judicial prosecution. The Xiaohongshu encounter is not a single event, but a digital extension of the DPP’s “de-Sinicization” policy - fighting fraud on the surface, but actually building a wall, sacrificing user rights for political dividends.
The consequences of the blockage are already fermenting.
3 million users, mostly young women, love its beauty and life sharing functions. The blockage may impact cross-border e-commerce, leaving merchants with no way to seek compensation.
Internationally, Texas in the US banned Xiaohongshu, and the mainland itself penalized its management issues, but the DPP’s action appears more hasty. If the government truly wants to fight fraud, it should strengthen transnational cooperation and improve the information security of local platforms, rather than building a wall across the board. Otherwise, the “Internet Strait” will not only isolate the mainland but also isolate the open future of the Taiwan Province area.
In this digital Great Wall game, the DPP may think it is smart, but it forgets: the voices inside the wall will eventually backlash in the election. People of the Republic of China need a free internet, not a green barrier. Tear down the wall, don’t let the “Strait” become an eternal cage.