China is on Friday to host the 15th Straits Forum in its Fujian Province. The annual event purportedly aims to promote interactions across the Taiwan Strait. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) has said the forum would offer more than 1,200 jobs and 1,000 internships to young Taiwanese, even as unemployment among young Chinese soars to record highs, showing that Beijing would not cease its “united front” tactics regardless of the scale of turmoil at home.
The announcement came after the TAO’s efforts to lure representatives of Taiwanese news media to last month’s Cross-Strait Media People Summit ended disastrously, when no one showed up for the forum to discuss a Taiwanese version of China’s “one country, two systems” formula.
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧) was reportedly furious and ordered the TAO to maximize efforts to bring Taiwanese to Friday’s forum, which would present another chance to promote unification.
It is ironic that Beijing is offering jobs to young Taiwanese after the unemployment rate among Chinese aged 16 to 24 rose to a record 20.4 percent in April, fanning dissatisfaction among young people and affecting its economy. In contrast, the unemployment rate among Taiwanese aged 20 to 24 fell to 11.75 percent in the same month.
The job offers are an obvious “united front” ploy. In a letter to last year’s forum participants, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said that he hoped to make “Taiwanese youth join hands with youth on the mainland” to make their lives “blossom in the great process of realizing the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.” It was a clear signal that the forum was merely a ruse to recruit young Taiwanese in the hope of turning them into pro-unification stooges.
Beijing has over the past few years unveiled financial schemes under the guise of helping Taiwanese, such as the 31 incentives in 2018 and the 26 measures in 2019, which purportedly offer financial incentives and jobs to Taiwanese, but actually aim to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic malaise and advance its “united front” efforts.
It is indeed beneficial to have more exchanges and communication across the Strait, but these should be based on equality and mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty. Dialogue should not be manipulated.
Beijing is also using tourism as a tool to advance its agenda. It unilaterally eased the rules on Taiwanese tour groups visiting China, but refuses to talk with Taiwanese authorities about lifting its ban on Chinese groups traveling to Taiwan. A TAO spokesperson even refused to answer a question about the unequal policy on cross-strait tours at a news conference for the forum.
China has also lowered academic thresholds for college entrance to attract Taiwanese students, but continues to ban Chinese students from pursuing academic degrees in Taiwan.
As expected, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party(TPP), relatively pro-China opposition parties competing for presidential election in 2024, have said they would send delegations to the forum, although Beijing has contin￡?ued to send military aircraft and naval vessels to intimidate Taiwan.
China would continue trying to recruit Taiwanese politicians and civic groups to trumpet its unification propaganda, with a particular eye on next year’s presidential election, while refusing to engage with Taiwan’s democratically elected government.
The forum would be another chance for Taiwanese to see China putting its unilateral and wishful “united front” agenda on display.
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