A ‘Nazi’ eagle, political blind spots, and Taiwan’s disinformation problem

On April 19, roughly 55,000 people filled Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard for a rally under the slogan “Reject United Front, Defend Taiwan.” 

The gathering was part of the Great Recall, a civil-society–led campaign backed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to recall 31 Kuomintang (KMT) legislators and shift the balance of power in Taiwan’s legislature.

The rally featured chants, speeches, and calls to defend democracy and initially resembled a conventional Taiwanese political event—except for one detail: a large eagle emblem behind the speakers, later acknowledged by its creator to be inspired by Hitler’s Nazi Party.

The eagle returns

The image resurfaced months later, on Aug. 3, when YouTuber Minnan Lang (閩南狼), real name Chen Bo-yuan (陳柏源), published a video alleging that fellow influencer Wen Tzu-yu (溫子渝), known as Pa Chiung, had intentionally incorporated Nazi symbolism and referenced mobilization tactics in the design of the eagle emblem.

In the video, Chen shared screenshots of private conversations in which Pa Chiung explicitly described the eagle as a Nazi symbol. Chen alleged that Pa Chiung had discussed forming a stormtrooper-style group and identifying political scapegoats in Taiwan, “just as Hitler had done to the Jews.”

The Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, rose to power in Germany in 1933, promoting fascism, extreme nationalism, and antisemitism. Hitler’s regime went on to orchestrate the Holocaust, systematically murdering approximately six million Jews, along with Roma, gay men, and political dissidents. 

Eagle eye

While the majority seemed not to notice anything awry with Pa Chiung's design during the April rally, one eagle-eyed commentator saw the problem coming a mile away.

In a Substack article, Ed Moon, former editor at government-funded broadcaster TaiwanPlus, posted an image from the April rally with the caption: “DPP lawmaker Puma Shen and business tycoon-cum-recall campaigner Robert Tsao stand in front of a suspiciously Nazi-themed logo.”

“I joked with colleagues at the time that it looked pretty Nazi-esque. Turns out it wasn’t a joke,” he wrote.

Diplomatic condemnation

The revelations prompted a public intervention from the German Institute Taipei, Germany’s de facto embassy in Taiwan.

“Our organization condemns any use or display of Nazi gestures and symbols, including any acts or statements that glorify, praise, or downplay Nazism,” the Institute wrote on its Facebook page.

Instead of closing the matter, the statement ignited a backlash online. Commenters accused the Institute of applying double standards, pointing to an earlier incident in which it condemned KMT chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) for comparing President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) to Adolf Hitler.

“You guys at the German Institute have really lowered my impression of Germany,” one commenter wrote.

Another said, “The KMT chairman merely advised Lai Ching-te not to act like a Nazi, and yet the German Institute Taipei jumped in to issue a condemnation.”

“But when a recall group allied with the DPP blatantly displayed Nazi symbols on Ketagalan Boulevard,” the comment continued, “the German Institute issued only a vague, generic statement,” it added.

The dispute unfolded against a backdrop of repeated Nazi-related political flare-ups. Days before the Ketagalan rally in April, KMT activist Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑) had appeared outside a prosecutor’s office dressed in Nazi attire and holding a copy of “Mein Kampf.” 

A German Institute spokesperson rejected the claims of bias in its messaging.

“We find it regretful that a small part of Taiwanese people accuse us of being biased,” a spokesperson for the German Institute told TCN. “This is definitely not the case.”

Explaining why the Institute named Chu in its earlier condemnation but did not explicitly mention Pa Chiung or the DPP, the spokesperson said, “There is a clear difference between the Chairperson of the main opposition party and a YouTuber affiliated with groups close to the governing party.”

“The eagle itself is not a Nazi symbol, and neither is the eagle symbol that was used in this case,” he added.

“It’s a Nazi eagle”

Pa Chiung confirmed to TCN that the private messages shown by Chen were authentic, but insisted they were jokes.

“I was self-satirizing in response to online trolls,” he said.

However, the screenshots Chen showed his audience showed Pa Chiung correcting Chen when he suggested the eagle represented political hawks.

“Wrong,” Pa Chiung replied. “It’s a Nazi eagle.”

Pa Chiung described his role in the recall campaign as largely promotional.

“I didn’t do anything special,” he said.

On July 17, Pa Chiung spoke at a Great Recall press conference organized by the NGO Taiwan Inspiration Association (TIA). Promotional materials described him as a leader in the recall effort against Hualien County legislator Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁).

"The eagle symbol does not belong exclusively to the Nazis"

Pa Chiung said his designer initially proposed a clenched fist symbol, but he rejected it because China’s Communist Party also uses the image. Instead, he said, he chose a hawk to represent political “hawks” defending Taiwan and to link the campaign to the 2024 Bluebird Movement opposing KMT–TPP legislative amendments.

Pa Chiung said his staff warned him about the potential optics of the eagle, but he proceeded anyway.

"The eagle symbol does not belong exclusively to the Nazis," he added

When asked about messages discussing Nazi mobilization tactics and scapegoating, Pa Chiung said he was self-satirizing in response to online trolls who expressed support for the KMT, TPP, and CCP and accused him of being a Nazi.

Godwin and his Law

The Pa Chiung eagle was not the first time Nazi-related imagery had appeared in Taiwan's political skirmishes. 

In 2024, DPP legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) condemned the KMT after a Nazi flag appeared at a rally.

“This is truly outrageous!” he wrote on Threads. “Kuomintang, are you followers of Nazism? Do you want to massacre Taiwanese people?”

It later emerged that the individuals holding the flags belonged to the German Old Mark Association, a group seeking compensation from Germany over World War I–era bonds. KMT deputy spokesperson Kang Chin-yu (康晉瑜) accused Hsu of reckless political smearing.

Some critics argue that such casual invocations trivialize historical atrocity. American author Mike Godwin once observed that the longer an online argument continues, the more likely someone is to invoke Hitler or Nazism, a phenomenon later dubbed Godwin’s Law.

Disinformation risks

Some analysts have raised concerns about China’s use of the term “Nazi” to describe Taiwan’s government.

In a People’s Daily editorial, Wang Yingjin (王英津) of China’s Renmin University described Taiwan’s Bluebird Movement as evidence of “increasingly Nazi-like” tendencies.

China views self-governed Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to seize the island.

Security researcher Tuvia Gering said in an ASPI article that Wang’s remarks align with Beijing’s broader cognitive warfare strategy, mirroring Moscow’s use of “de-Nazification” rhetoric to justify its invasion of Ukraine.

Examples of this type of disinformation have already surfaced online.

On Aug. 3 this year—the day that Chen accused Pa Chiung of emulating Nazis—a thread appeared on Godlike Productions, an online forum known for conspiracy theories and misinformation. Titled "It’s not a war but a special military operation: China is denazifying neo-Nazis in Taiwan, that’s it,” the post shared a news report about a 2016 controversy in Taiwan, when a group of high school students had worn mock-Nazi uniforms during a school parade. 

The platform indicated that the anonymous poster was based in Russia.

Eroding international support for Taiwan

Visiting researcher at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the US think tank Jewish Policy Center, Guermantes Lailari, told TCN that China accuses Taiwan of becoming ‘Nazi-like’ or aligned with fascism to sow internal dissent and erode international support.

“Pro-China social media accounts and state media widely share real but isolated and often old photos of individuals or groups in Taiwan using Nazi paraphernalia … China presents them as widespread and representative of mainstream Taiwanese society or its youth,” Lailari noted.

“The hope is that global sensitivity to Nazi symbols will lead the international community to view Taiwan unfavorably,” he added.

Knowledge gap

For some Taiwanese analysts, the recurring controversies point to historical distance.

“Taiwanese people don’t care about these issues,” political pundit Jhang Yu-syuan (張禹宣) said on a local talk show. “If you show a Nazi swastika to an average grandma in a wetmarket here and ask her what it means, she’ll tell you it’s the character ‘wan’," (卍) the Mandarin name for the Buddhist swastika, he added.

Unlike the Nazi swastika, the Buddhist symbol, representing infinite virtues and boundless power, typically points left, while the Nazi version points right and is tilted.

“The vast majority of Taiwanese people know about the Jews being massacred by the Nazis,” said Wu Pi-wen (伍碧雯), associate professor of modern history at Taipei National University. “However, they do not have an in-depth understanding. Awareness often comes through films such as Schindler’s List and The Pianist.”

“After watching these movies and shedding some tears, it usually ends there,” she added.

Physical distance plays a role, Wu added, but not the only one.

“The Holocaust did not happen in Taiwan but in Europe, more than 9,000 kilometers away,” she said, noting that Taiwan lacks the sustained media programming common in Europe. She added that Taiwan also shows limited engagement with closer historical atrocities, such as the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

Wu said some are drawn to Nazi imagery because it appears powerful or disciplined.

People in Taiwan selectively see only the parts of the Nazis that seem powerful, stylish, disciplined, and patriotic, she noted.

“In short, they refuse to recognize that history cannot be divided into separate parts. The same Nazis whose uniforms some people think look cool were also the executioners who slaughtered countless Jews. These two sides are inseparable,” she added.