Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯) posted a video on Friday last week about how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bribes Taiwanese online influencers in its “united front” efforts to manipulate public opinion in Taiwan. The video showed how China’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) provided Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) with the tools with which to create anti-Taiwanese independence content.

Whereas official propaganda works well within China to a domestic audience, international audiences, with their access to less controlled content, present a problem for the CCP, which wants to keep a tight rein on the narrative. However, the party has found a way to use free speech and an unregulated social media environment to its benefit: control the situation at source, influence the influencers and offer financial rewards for people wanting to monetize content on online platforms that exist beyond the Great Firewall of China.

On May 27, 2022, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) — still a mayoral candidate at the time — suggested three prerequisites for the continuation of the Shanghai-Taipei Twin City Forum: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could no longer harass Taiwan, must show goodwill toward the nation, and must acknowledge that Taiwan and China are equals.

Just two-and-a-half years later, these commitments have been abandoned completely. This has led to a loss of trust in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) principles and ability to handle cross-strait relations.