Hong Kong singer and actress Denise Ho (何韻詩) was attacked with red paint during a pro-Hong Kong democracy rally in Taipei on Sept. 29. The alleged assailant was China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) member Hu Chih-wei (胡志偉). Some observers have said that the case provides the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) with a smoking gun it can capitalize on in the run-up to next year’s elections.
The argument goes that the incident exposes the true anti-democratic nature of the CUPP, and that it would trigger a backlash among the electorate against pro-China Taiwanese politicians and hand the DPP the election on a plate. Not so fast.
While watching Kaohsiung Mayor and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) being asked by a television news reporter about his views on the attack, as well as his falling poll ratings, Han’s expression changed into an odd smirk, revealing a barely disguised air of self-assurance.
I asked myself why.
A friend directed me to an article published in August last year in CommonWealth Magazine titled “United front targets Taiwan’s grassroots: gangs, temples, business.” After reading the article, I had the answer.
For many years, the CUPP has been carefully nurturing local networks across the nation. This includes organized crime, businesses, temple organizations, village chiefs, borough wardens and students. The party then sends these grassroots-level groups to China who are wowed by the “motherland.”
The party’s “united front” strategy appears to be to build recognition for “Red China” at a local level and pursue a Maoist strategy of surrounding Taiwan’s cities from the countryside.
According to the article, the CUPP claims to have already established more than 100 chapters in cities and counties across the nation, including Taipei and Miaoli, Pingtung, Yunlin, Chiayi and Nantou counties. The party even has two women’s groups and three chapters within the traditionally “deep-green” Sinying District (新營) in Tainan.
On Sept. 20 last year, the party-operated “Taiwan People’s Communist Party Matsu Temple” in Sinying was torn down by the Tainan City Government. Before it was demolished, the temple ostentatiously flew the Five-Star Red Flag of the People’s Republic of China and a sign above the “temple’s” entrance was inscribed with the slogans: “Taiwan People’s Communist Party,” “We are one family” and “Lead a happy life.”
Perhaps most important, since CUPP chapters are run locally, the power of local relationships will often trump issues of national importance for these voters: a crucial advantage for the party during elections.
For example, during the 2014 nine-in-one elections, the party successfully got two of its candidates elected as city and township councilors, in addition to a borough warden and a village chief. In the 2016 legislative election, the party, claiming it had more than 30,000 members, received 56,000 votes.
It would be wrong for the DPP to write off the CUPP as nothing more than a thuggish band of Chinese-born spouses, gangsters and “united front” agitators. The party has a well-established operational structure that is based on a “holy trinity” of grassroots organizational power backed up by a tsunami of propaganda from Taiwan’s pro-China “red media” and intimidation available on tap from its affiliates within the criminal underworld.
The DPP must ensure it is not only focused on fighting Beijing and the KMT: The CUPP’s covert operations currently constitute the gravest security threat to the nation.
Lin Jui-hsia is director of the Taoshan Humanity and Arts Institute in Chiayi County and founder of the Happy Citizens Academy.
Translated by Edward Jones
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