China’s United Front Work Department has ratcheted up influence operations targeting young Taiwanese seeking to study or work in China, the Mainland Affairs Council said.
The council issued the warning in a report released on Tuesday titled The Current and Future Developments in Cross-Strait Relations, which was prepared for the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
Propaganda portraying model Taiwanese students who have prospered in the “motherland” has been observed with increasing frequency in Chinese state-owned media in the past few years, the report said.
Summer camps have been established in a bid to win the sympathies of Taiwanese students, while attention is paid to recruiting the children of Taiwanese-Chinese couples to be pro-China agitators, it said.
Beijing officials have also stepped up efforts to recruit the children of Taiwanese-Chinese couples as potential agents for “united front” work by offering special summer camps, it said.
The government is committed to maintaining healthy and orderly interactions with China that promote peace in the Taiwan Strait and benefit the public, which includes accepting Chinese students, the council said.
Taiwanese universities enrolled only 576 Chinese students after Beijing last year unilaterally suspended study and work programs in Taiwan, it said.
The public needs to be aware of Beijing’s political agenda, the social, political and economic realities in China, and the risks people working and living there face, the report said.
Schools are now required to register students and faculty members involved in education exchanges in China via the Mainland Educational Exchange Registry Platform, the council said, adding that people who are registered would be warned of risks and briefed on emergency assistance arrangements should they need help from the government.
The registration rule applies to all education exchange programs, including in-person and virtual events, it said, adding that it has set up a dedicated information page on its Web site for Taiwanese students, which would be constantly updated.
The Straits Exchange Foundation has established a consultation hotline to advise young people about working or studying in China, it added.
The report said that the Taiwanese government has completed an overhaul of national security laws in response to infiltration by “external hostile forces,” and adjustments to rules and regulations would be made as necessary.
Meanwhile, 3,516 Chinese visited Taiwan in the first seven months of this year, down 94.83 percent from the 68,000 who visited in the same months last year, council data showed.
The decline was largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the report said.
Taiwanese-Chinese marriages during the same period declined to 1,207, compared with the yearly average of 12,000 marriages from 2008 to 2012, it said.
Since the two governments opened cross-strait family visits in 1998, 30.47 million Chinese have visited Taiwan, it said.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
ENTERTAINERS IN CHINA: Taiwanese generally back the government being firm on infiltration and ‘united front’ work,’ the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association said Most people support the government probing Taiwanese entertainers for allegedly “amplifying” the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, a survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association showed on Friday. Public support stood at 56.4 percent for action by the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Culture to enhance scrutiny on Taiwanese performers and artists who have developed careers in China while allegedly adhering to the narrative of Beijing’s propaganda that denigrates or harms Taiwanese sovereignty, the poll showed. Thirty-three percent did not support the action, it showed. The poll showed that 51.5 percent of respondents supported the government’s investigation into Taiwanese who have
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
RSS