China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) on Wednesday criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government for initiating a one-year restriction on Shanghai-based social platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書, also known as RedNote in English), describing the ban as “anti-democratic” and claiming it deprives Taiwanese of their rights and freedom to access the app.
TAO spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) made the remarks at a news conference in Beijing, in which his answers to other reporters’ questions on the issue highlighted the Chinese government’s constant self-contradictory statements and exposed the lies that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has repeated to the Taiwanese public.
Chen said Xiaohongshu is a popular social media platform among Taiwanese, who use it to understand Chinese society and engage in friendly interactions with Chinese users, but DPP authorities are deliberately creating an “information cocoon.” He said the ban was imposed under the pretense of preventing fraud, but is actually aimed at blocking mutual understanding and exchanges between young people in Taiwan and China. He used wordplay to satirize the DPP as the “ban-the-people party,” for its restrictions on Chinese e-commerce and social media sites.
However, Chen froze for a few seconds when a Central News Agency (CNA) reporter asked about Chinese having to bypass China’s “Great Firewall” to access Western social media, and whether the government would consider allowing them access to Facebook, as the TAO and other Chinese government agencies have accounts on the platform. He eventually responded that his government supports the use of all kinds of social media in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations, adding that China puts its citizens first, lawfully combats telecom fraud and criminal activities, and safeguards the lives, property and rights of Chinese.
His remarks seem almost comical, given China’s Internet censorship, and as the “Great Firewall” creates one of the world’s most infamous “information cocoons” to limit and filter what Chinese can access and see online. Also, “democracy” and “freedom” have never been associated with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) one-party authoritarian regime, although it frequently claims such values in its official discourse and documents.
What can be posted on Chinese social media is strictly monitored, and so-called nonpolitical content on Xiaohongshu has been meticulously curated under the government’s comprehensive and stringent surveillance rules and the self-censorship culture in China. Lifestyle content must align with state-approved ideology, and posts perceived as “socially undesirable” or “potentially sensitive” are removed.
Meanwhile, Chen’s reply to another question by the CNA reporter inadvertently exposed lies that KMT politicians have often used to mislead the public. The reporter asked if the TAO would request that its affiliate the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits assist Xiaohongshu in communicating with Taiwanese authorities, as requests to submit anti-fraud improvement plans submitted through the Straits Exchange Foundation were not met with a reply.
Chen said that because the DPP administration refuses to accept the so-called “1992 consensus that embodies the one China principle,” the communication mechanism between the foundation and the association had been suspended.
The Chinese government has repeatedly and on many occasions stressed its “one China” principle. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) on Tuesday last week told his German counterpart that “there is no room for ambiguity” on the position, and in China’s policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean released on Wednesday last week, it again said “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and the government of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is the sole legal government representing the whole of China.”
Chen’s response clearly debunked the KMT’s claim that the so-called “1992-consensus” is an understanding between the KMT and the CCP with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means, because Beijing explicitly reiterated that “China” only has one meaning — the PRC.
It also revealed the KMT’s lies about “the DPP refusing to communicate with China,” while raising questions about how the KMT can work with China, as it claims, without accepting Beijing’s “one China” precondition.
Many KMT politicians and some so-called pacifists have accused the DPP of being unwilling to communicate with Beijing and “provoking” China to take hostile actions. However, the premise of accepting Beijing’s “one China” principle for talks with China’s leaders is concerning and should be closely scrutinized.
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