Lately, China has been inviting Taiwanese influencers to travel to China’s Xinjiang region to make films, weaving a “beautiful Xinjiang” narrative as an antidote to the international community’s criticisms by creating a Potemkin village where nothing is awry. Such manipulations appear harmless — even compelling enough for people to go there — but peeling back the shiny veneer reveals something more insidious, something that is hard to ignore.
These films are not only meant to promote tourism, but also harbor a deeper level of political intentions. Xinjiang — a region of China continuously listed in global human rights reports — has long been notorious and rebuked internationally for the revelation of China’s policies of forced labor camps and suppression of minorities.
Beijing hopes that it can change the international community’s negative image of Xinjiang and achieve whitewashing through audiovisual content made by influencers.
Leaked data show that Beijing is putting great effort into promoting its “beautiful Xinjiang” campaign — in truth it is a piece of its cognitive warfare puzzle. China’s government not only invites influencers to visit the region on junket trips, but also sucks in Taiwanese business owners by asking them to consider investing there, attempting to closely tie business and politics. Beijing is shifting the focus through economic incentives and smothering reports of human rights abuses within Xinjiang’s cotton production industry. Such behavior should be alarming: Are they harmless business interactions or are they a much deeper and sinister tool of political propaganda?
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has said that some influencers could be recipients of China’s funding, but the source of these funds is highly controversial. If these influencers are carrying out filming with political aims without clear accounting for their funding, they might be contravening the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法).
The act has long targeted and clarified what constitutes overseas infiltration activities. If influencers, intentionally or not, accept Chinese funding to carry out propaganda work in Taiwan, thereby interfere with the nation’s social order, or attempt to influence election results, their activities should be met with severe legal repercussions.
The question of whether these influencers’ videos constitute dissemination of false information and mislead the public warrants more attention. Should this kind of content be broadcast widely, it would not only influence travel choices, but could subliminally alter people’s views of Xinjiang and China as a whole. Ultimately, it could have a far-reaching impact on Taiwan’s democratic society.
The government should not take this wave of China’s propaganda offensive lightly. The MAC has stated that it would do more to monitor influencers’ videos and consider proposals to amend the Anti-infiltration Act. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) initiated a proposal aimed at foreign funding sources, requiring that such sources are uncovered publicly. Doing so could guarantee that there would be no political force manipulating public discourse.
This sort of transparency would not only be aimed at influencers, but also at any businesses and people who take funding from Beijing. China tries to weaponize economic tools to influence Taiwan’s social movements, but this is something that has long been known to Taiwanese. From low-interest loans to trying to entice Taiwanese businesses to China, to putting lots of effort into promoting investment opportunities in Xinjiang, the aim of such activities is crystal clear: to exchange economic benefits for political influence and gradually chip away at Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Tomorrow is Double Ten National Day. There might be several artists and influencers who are performing in China would start whitewashing on China-based social media platforms about how they “celebrate their “amazing ancestral homeland.”
Performances such as these are cringeworthy and exasperating. Are these activities out of the content providers’ own initiative or is there something more cynical going on in the background? With money being flashed in front of their faces, would these influencers be capable of girding themselves and standing up with some dignity for the sake of their own credibility?
China’s infiltration activities are no longer just a matter of economics, they are gradually extending toward cultural and social spheres. Influencers’ videos and Taiwanese entrepreneurs’ investments appear harmless at first glance, but they might be harboring far deeper political motivations. Taiwanese must remain constantly vigilant to keep this sort of influence from being drilled deeper into their lives.
Chang Yi-ying is self-employed.
Translated by Tim Smith
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