This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now licensed for reprint.
In a meeting with former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou, who is already on a contentious journey of China, President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s territorial claim to democratic Taiwan and compared it to a “family reunion.”
According to video footage of the meeting that Taiwan’s TVBS broadcast, differences in systems do n’t change the fact that we belong to one nation and one people, Xi said. During a meeting with Ma at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi said,” Our unification cannot be prevented by physical disturbance.”
Xi, who referred to Ma as “Mr. Ma Ying-jeou” rather than as Taiwan’s former senator, said there was no issue that was off the board in conversations with Taiwan.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has repeatedly said the island wo n’t be renounced as a result of Beijing’s refusal to agree to government-to-government talks, which the Xi government has rejected. Beijing has not yet rejected the use of military force to annex Taiwan.
Ma, whose Kuomintang group, or KMT, previously ruled China, fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists in 1949. He ruled as an authoritarian dictator for many years before being sworn out in 2016 political primaries. arrived in China on April 1 for an 11-day attend intended to promote peace.
He told Xi that both sides of the Taiwan Strait believed in the “one China ” policy, a position that nods to Beijing’s claim, but does n’t specify how or when “unification ” might happen.
He called on people on both sides of the Strait to “oppose Taiwan independence, get popular ground while reserving differences, dismiss disputes, and make a win-win situation in which both sides simultaneously follow peaceful development. ”
Anger again house
However, Ma’s journey has sparked outrage in her native country.
Taiwan has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China, and most of its 23 million people have no wish to give up their independence or political way of life to get ruled by China, according to multiple public judgment polls in recent years.
Last month, Tsai and her officers criticized an earlier China trip by Ma for undermining the island’s authorities, because the former president ’s emphasis on a “Chinese” identification for Taiwan shores up Beijing’s regional says.
Ma second met Xi in Singapore in soon 2015 for a location summit immediately before the latest Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, won a flood vote victory in January 2016. In January, the Democratic Progressive Party, the ruling group, won a ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; next presidential election in a row in a more confirmation of Tsai’s approach.
Lai Jung Wei, an assistant professor at the Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, described Ma’s journey as being jam-packed with symbolic sessions designed to counteract Chinese political mood, which claims Taiwan is a renegade province in need of “unification.” This includes a ceremony at the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor, a magical number whose descendants are said to be all Chinese citizens.
“Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese dream ’ is full of nationalism … and the idea of the celestial dynasty [destined to rule China through the ages ] has a long history, ” Lai told RFA Cantonese. “Politically, his approach and the Chinese dream of Xi Jinping … work together. ”
Ma is also very unhappy with the Democratic Progressive Party’s current leadership and its recent pushback against Chineseness. ”
He claimed that Ma has publicly cried numerous times during her current trip to show an appeal to nationalistic emotion.
Meeting comes amid warnings
The tenth anniversary of the signing of the U.S. comes during the second Ma-Xi meeting. S. ’ Taiwan Relations Act into law, requiring Washington to take steps to help the island defend itself, including through arms sales, despite Beijing’s vocal opposition.
a U.S. spokesman S. The United States Department of State informed Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Monday. S. is closely monitoring Beijing’s actions, following reports of Chinese drone activity on Monday around the Taiwan-controlled island of Kinmen, which lies just six kilometers off the Chinese coast.
The Taiwan Strait and the entire region have benefited from decades of peace and stability, but we continue to push for restraint and no unilateral change, the spokesman said.
“We urge [ China ] to engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan to reduce the risk of miscalculation. ”
Additionally, the meeting comes as Taiwan’s democracy is being threatened by Beijing’s disinformation and propaganda campaign.
Shun-Ching Yang, analyst lead of the Digital Intelligence team at Doublethink Lab, told a seminar at Taiwan’s representative office in Washington on April 8 that the lab’s researchers had identified more than 10,000 posts on Facebook, Douyin, TikTok and other social media platforms believed to be part of a Chinese-led disinformation campaign targeting Taiwan in the run-up to January’s elections.
“We found that the Chinese authorities ’ main strategy is smear campaigns, targeting the ruling party or its allies, and using current social problems to target people’s fears, ” Yang said. Much of the content used generative AI, while some videos on TikTok featured real-life online celebrities, in a bid to appeal to a wider audience.
Smear campaign
Eve Chiu, CEO and editor-in-chief of the Taiwan FactCheck Center, said China ’s Ministry of State Security used AI anchors to launch a large-scale smear attack on President Tsai, while an e-book titled “The Secret History of Tsai Ing-wen” circulated widely among pro-China accounts on YouTube and Facebook.
One included a deep-fake video of president-elect Lai Ching-te appearing to endorse opposition KMT and Taiwan People’s Party candidates in the election.
Many of the disinformation posts were forwarded by well-known social media accounts in China, known as “big V” accounts, she said.
Taiwan Information Environment Research Center co-director and software engineer Chihhao Yu said the center had just completed an in-depth analysis of pro-China proxy accounts on TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin.
The content being forwarded on Douyin is very similar, according to Yu, who added that some pro-China content had originated on YouTube, suggesting Beijing is trying to gain more traction on international social media platforms.
