Taiwan and Tibet enjoy a unique and amicable relationship. With the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan and Taiwan embracing democratic values, both sides have successfully strengthened a relationship that was once at the point of brinkmanship due to the establishment of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission based on China’s nationalist frontier policy of five races.

Since the late 1990s, Taiwan and Tibet have put relations on a new path, as shown by the establishment of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan, the Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association, Students for a Free Tibet’s Taiwan chapter, Taiwan Friends of Tibet and, most recently, the Taiwan Parliamentary Group for Tibet.

The title and logo of the Mainland Affairs Council are pictured on a podium at the council’s offices in Taipei in an undated photograph.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times

China’s “united front” efforts targeting Taiwan are ubiquitous, and include the employment of Internet celebrities to carry out infiltration campaigns on social media, members of the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) Advisory Committee said yesterday.

Following the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) decision at its National Congress on Sept. 6 to uphold the so-called “1992 consensus” to govern cross-strait relations, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) on Sept. 8 invited former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to lead the party’s delegation to this year’s Straits Forum in Xiamen, China.

On Sept. 10, a program on China Central Television (CCTV) showed a headline about Wang and the delegation that read: “With the [Taiwan] Strait on the brink of war, this man [Wang] is coming to the mainland to sue for peace.”