China is targeting projects to enhance public spaces in its “united front” tactics, a lawmaker said yesterday after New Taipei City-based cultural conservation group Am Kehnn Cultural Workshop (暗坑文化工作室) said that Beijing has conducted a covert campaign to infiltrate Taiwanese placemaking projects.
Taiwan’s placemaking scene is awash with Chinese money, Am Kehnn Cultural Workshop wrote on Facebook on Thursday, adding that almost every region in the nation was among the winners at a cross-strait construction and creation contest held by China’s Fujian Province.
Beijing’s campaign to fund projects to enhance public spaces poses a greater danger to Taiwan than its support of local temples, as people who run the projects tend to be highly influential members of their communities, the group said.
Photo: Reuters
Chinese infiltration targeting Taiwan’s grassroots efforts to renovate local communities, mainly headed by the Fujian provincial government, appeared to focus on poaching Taiwanese talent, buying the support of local grassroots organizations and spreading pro-China narratives, the group said.
Chinese state-run news Web platform People.cn reported that Fujian has recruited 95 Taiwanese architectural and cultural industry entities and 300 people in related fields to work for the province’s own placemaking initiatives, the group said.
On Friday, the group named dozens of entities that allegedly received funding from Fujian. The list comprised mostly local businesses and education institutions, including Dayeh University in Changhua County and Tunghai University in Taichung.
The group cited information from the cross-strait construction and creation contest and public announcements of the universities’ exchange programs as evidence.
The competition cannot be said to be apolitical, as Article 9 of the event’s governing charter stipulates that placemaking projects that compromise Chinese national secrets or have negative social effects are to be excluded from consideration, it said.
The rule is a veiled reference to prevent projects that express Taiwanese localism from winning, it said.
Its rules also stipulate that the event should be broadly promoted by the media, showing that it was part of Beijng’s so-called “great external propaganda efforts,” Am Kehnn Cultural Workshop said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) yesterday said that the targeting of placemaking was a new development in China’s continued “united front” tactics.
By providing financial support, Beijing seeks to build rapport with the nation’s cultural industry, which would be a useful instrument to broaden China’s influence over ordinary people, Wang said.
Beijing’s willingness to spend money on the cultural industry in Taiwan when nearly 300 million rural Chinese are on the poverty line shows that its efforts are intended to undermine Taiwan, he said.
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
RSS