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Features: Beijing tries soft-sell tactics with young Taiwanese

Taiwanese students Zhang Xiaojing, right, and Shaun Chang, center, walk with Chinese student Suo Ruijun in the grounds of Tsinghua University in Beijing on Tuesday. Chang said Chinese authorities have worked hard to make her and other Taiwanese students feel comfortable. But she says she resists thinking of herself as Chinese. PHOTO: AP

Thirty-four-year-old Huang Ching-ping boots up his laptop in a picturesque Taipei teahouse and scrolls through a series of colorful photographs from his latest foreign trip.

They're a far cry from the usual tourist fare. The pictures show huge red banners hanging from the lobby of an upmarket hotel exhorting Taiwan to cast its lot with China.

"One China," they say. "Oppose Taiwan Independence, Support Unification."

The conference on cross-strait unity, held last December in Macau, hardly seems a natural draw for students like Huang, who are far more likely to spend a vacation on Bali's beaches or taking in Europe's cathedrals.

But over the past several years, a new generation of Taiwanese has been participating in all-expense-paid Chinese junkets aimed at promoting union with China and combatting the policies of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

The events -- seminars, camps, university programs and academic conferences -- are part of a well-coordinated effort to show a kinder, gentler side of China to Taiwan's 23 million people.

Their principal targets are future opinion makers, including graduate students and junior academics.

For much of the past 58 years, China's Taiwan policy has been dominated by saber-rattling -- the deployment of 900 missiles aimed at Taiwanese targets, for example, or repeated threats to invade if Taiwan were to formalize its de facto independence.

Still, said Tsai Sheng-dung (蔡生當), a section deputy director of the Mainland Affairs Council, China's new push is no surprise, because Beijing regards young Taiwanese as crucial elements in the struggle for national unity.

"China has always seen the youth of Taiwan as key trend setters for the future of the nation," he said. "Working with Taiwan's youth to create a sense of identification has become a key part of China's efforts toward Taiwan."

Tsai said the cultivation of Taiwanese young people has expanded rapidly in recent years, with some 7,000 participating in Chinese-sponsored events last year and an even higher figure expected this year. That doesn't include the 5,000 Taiwanese enrolled full-time in Chinese universities.

Huang attended the Macau seminar at the Golden Dragon Hotel at the initiative of his Chinese Cultural University professor.

For four days, Huang and 40 fellow students sat within earshot of Macau's famous gambling tables and sumptuous gourmet restaurants as communist officials talked up unity between China and Taiwan -- and repeatedly lambasted Chen's pro-independence line.

At least in Huang's case, the persuasion effort fell short.

"They didn't change my mind at all," he said. "I'm against both unification and independence -- I support the status quo."

Huang believes a key goal of the seminar was to inculcate a strong Chinese identity among the participants -- something diametrically opposed to Chen's insistence that China is a foreign country.

"There were all these banners in the hotel about how people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are descended from the legendary Chinese emperors," he said. "There was even this guy walking around with a sign saying `one China' and blasting Taiwanese independence. It was not a subtle sell."

Huang's reaction closely mirrors that of Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), 40, an Academia Sinica researcher, who attended an all-expense paid academic conference on cross-strait relations at a luxury hotel in Beijing last summer.

Though a strong supporter of the Democratic Progressive Party, Hsu was not surprised to find himself on the guest list.

"I think they want to show they're willing to talk to everyone and not just the opposition," he said.

He dismissed the academic value of the conference as "a mere talking shop," but said his Chinese counterparts appeared to relish the opportunity to gain some insight into contemporary Taiwanese thinking.

"They tried very hard to interact with us," he said.

The conference had no impact on Hsu's anti-unification sentiments, which he said have grown more pronounced since Chen became president in 2000.

"Ten years ago I may have thought of myself as Chinese," he said. "But now I'm Taiwanese. I'm not Chinese at all."

Such certainty eludes Shaun Chang, 36, who has studied media for the past three years at Beijing's Tsinghua University, home to about 100 Taiwanese students.

Chang, whose grandparents came to Taiwan from China in 1949, says she goes out of her way to disguise her background.

"When I'm in cabs in Beijing I speak with a local accent to hide the fact that I'm Taiwanese," she said. "If anyone asks me where I'm from I say I'm a Taipei-er living in Beijing -- never someone from Taiwan. I guess I'm kind of rootless."

But even if she appreciates several aspects of life in China -- particularly its rapid economic growth -- she resists thinking of herself as exclusively Chinese.

"I always try to think what is best for my people -- the Taiwanese first and then afterward the Chinese," she said.

"Because for me, the Taiwanese still come first," she said.
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