"The forum was attended by business leaders and opposition politicians from Taiwan, despite an official ban on participation by Taiwan's central government." [opposition politicians]
The attendance of opposition politicians and business leaders in defiance of a central government ban shows the forum functioned as a channel to cultivate sub-state allies, directly supporting the signal's claim about bypassing the target government.
Reasoning from this article
By routing purchase pledges through a forum that opposition figures attended in defiance of Taipei's ban, Beijing simultaneously created economic incentives for Taiwanese farmers and political cover for opposition parties to attack the ruling government's warnings as 'politicization.' This wedge dynamic — where economic inducements are structured to divide the target society along existing political fault lines — is a generalizable influence operation pattern applicable beyond Taiwan to any democracy with a divided legislature and export-dependent rural constituencies.