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.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS