The Fanxing Project (繁星計畫) introduced by China’s Fudan University to attract young Taiwanese to intern at Chinese companies during the summer vacation is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “united front” tactics, a Taiwanese academic said.
The Shanghai branch of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) has commissioned the project with Fudan University, which aims to provide more than 200 positions for Taiwanese students across 100 universities, the TAO Web site said.
The Hubei University of Economics is also inviting Taiwanese aged 18 to 45 to join its “Cross-strait Youth Culture and Arts” event, pledging to cover room and board expenses.
Photo: Reuters
Asked for comment, Taiwan Association of University Professors board director Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said the CCP is stepping up its “united front” tactics toward young Taiwanese and strengthening its ties with local temples.
Many leading Chinese universities have also introduced preferential admittance regimes for Taiwanese students using scores from the General Scholastic Ability Test, which is an attempt to subvert young people’s Taiwanese identity, he said.
Many young people in Taiwan see Taiwan and China as separate countries, which has alerted the CCP that it must step up its “united front” tactics toward young Taiwanese, Chen said.
China understands that finding jobs and getting into good universities are high on Taiwanese students’ priority lists and has reacted accordingly, he added.
China’s program uses the same Chinese characters, fan hsing (繁星), as a Ministry of Education program, a ploy to mislead Taiwanese students.
Such tactics hope to make Taiwanese students “overlook” or “forget” that China is an enemy, and is based on a theory that once a student develops a good impression of China, they would not be against unification, he said.
The CCP has given up trying to change the mindset of middle-aged to elderly Democratic Progressive Party supporters and is increasingly focusing its efforts on young people, he added.
Having young people live in an environment where Taiwanese independence is heavily criticized would “brainwash” them, he said.
While not everyone would be brainwashed when studying or working in China, if half of those visiting are converted, Beijing’s “united front” tactics would be considered a success, he said, adding that this is a looming crisis that Taiwan would have to face.
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