Media reports of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) denying permission for Chinese rapper Wang Yitai (王以太) to perform in Taipei is interesting not just because of the politics, but also the response and perceptions of the public in Taiwan and China.
Wang was due to perform on Sept. 14 and 15, but the MAC denied him entry because of promotional photographs in which the rapper was pictured sitting below a train station sign for a journey between Beijing and “Taipei, China” (中國台北). Accompanying the image was the phrase “Next stop: Taipei, China.”
The MAC, determining that this promotional content overstepped the bounds of acceptability under the law, subsequently discovered that the event organizers had started selling tickets on July 1, before it submitted an application for the event on July 10.
The matter seems quite straightforward. The government has objections to any comments that question the nation’s sovereignty and subsequently discovered irregularities in the application process, so permission was denied.
The event organizer, Mercury Entertainment, pushed back, saying that the offending promotion was not displayed in Taiwan, and the Ministry of Culture and the National Immigration Agency were aware that tickets were already being sold, but had raised no objections. Mercury added that it never intended to create any provocation or conflict.
Then came the responses from the public of the respective countries, the suspicions and the provocative barbs that tell the real story.
Wang himself has remained silent. His fans in China, less so. There was the posting online of a map of communist China showing Taiwan and the area within the nine-dash line all in communist red, together with the text “China must be whole” (中國一點都不能少). Provocative, certainly, but to what degree can the individual be blamed when exposed to blanket rhetoric and censorship from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? And it would be a mistake to think that all Chinese swallow the CCP’s rhetoric as fully as this fan apparently has.
In Taiwan, there was suspicion about pernicious intent behind the irregularity, as represented by the argument of a letter on this page. By selling the tickets before permission was granted, Mercury could help the CCP leverage the frustration of Taiwanese ticket holders to put pressure on the Democratic Progressive Party government: If Wang was unable to perform and the tickets were not refunded, Taiwanese fans would blame the government, and if the MAC relented and allowed Wang to perform, it would be signaling acceptance of the “Taipei, China” designation, the letter said.
To an outsider, this might sound like a conspiracy theory. It is possible to argue that this suspicion is slightly paranoid, but it is not possible to argue that the interpretation is not felt by Taiwanese, especially the younger generation. It is a measure of the dearth of trust in the CCP because of its political manipulation at every level, with every excuse, even within the entertainment industry; it is wariness of the “whole of society” and “united front” efforts of the CCP to exert pressure on Taiwan.
Whether the organizer is in on the game is beside the point. The interesting thing is the baked-in suspicion among large sections of the Taiwanese population that the CCP would do anything to maintain its narrative and to sow discord in Taiwan. Even those who might not necessarily have come to this interpretation unprompted could feel that it was a reasonable interpretation if it was presented to them.
The public in Taiwan and China have their reasons for their perceptions and their suspicions. These are neither monolithic or immutable, and relationships with governments and narratives change.
It will be interesting to see to what degree the citizens of the two countries will guide events in the next five to 10 years.
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