TAIPEI, July 10 ------ As the coronavirus pandemic all but halts travel across the Taiwan Strait, China is taking its campaign pushing for “reunification” with Taiwan to the virtual world of live broadcasts, online conferences and video-making competitions. The intensifying efforts to win hearts and minds in democratic Taiwan come amid widespread support on the island for anti-government protests in Hong Kong and opposition to a new Chinese-imposed security law for the city.
Taiwan is China’s most sensitive territorial issue, with Beijing claiming the self-ruled island as its own, to be brought under its control by force if needed. While many Taiwanese trace their ancestry to mainland China and share cultural similarities with Chinese, most don’t want to be ruled by autocratic China. Beijing has long sought to win over Taiwan, where defeated Nationalist forces fled in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war. Cut-price summer programmes for young Taiwanese, find-your-roots tours and other schemes push the message Taiwan would be better off under Beijing, and has nothing to fear. With normal travel links suspended, China has turned to the internet to continue this campaign.
In June, dozens of Taiwan families joined a gala in the southern Chinese city of Fuzhou via video call to celebrate the traditional Dragon Boat Festival. Chinese state media described the event as an effort to boost “ancestral identity of Taiwan youth” and “express wishes for everlasting love across the Taiwan Strait”. A video-making contest to “break down barriers created by the virus” is now being advertised to Taiwan high school students. “The epidemic has cut off the mountains from the seas, but cannot cut off the longing for home,” an online poster on the competition wrote, which was co-hosted by a Chinese Communist Party youth group based in Fujian province, on the other side of the strait from Taiwan.
Source: reuters.com