China is targeting projects to enhance public spaces in its “united front” tactics, a lawmaker said yesterday after New Taipei City-based cultural conservation group Am Kehnn Cultural Workshop (暗坑文化工作室) said that Beijing has conducted a covert campaign to infiltrate Taiwanese placemaking projects.
Taiwan’s placemaking scene is awash with Chinese money, Am Kehnn Cultural Workshop wrote on Facebook on Thursday, adding that almost every region in the nation was among the winners at a cross-strait construction and creation contest held by China’s Fujian Province.
Beijing’s campaign to fund projects to enhance public spaces poses a greater danger to Taiwan than its support of local temples, as people who run the projects tend to be highly influential members of their communities, the group said.
Photo: Reuters
Chinese infiltration targeting Taiwan’s grassroots efforts to renovate local communities, mainly headed by the Fujian provincial government, appeared to focus on poaching Taiwanese talent, buying the support of local grassroots organizations and spreading pro-China narratives, the group said.
Chinese state-run news Web platform People.cn reported that Fujian has recruited 95 Taiwanese architectural and cultural industry entities and 300 people in related fields to work for the province’s own placemaking initiatives, the group said.
On Friday, the group named dozens of entities that allegedly received funding from Fujian. The list comprised mostly local businesses and education institutions, including Dayeh University in Changhua County and Tunghai University in Taichung.
The group cited information from the cross-strait construction and creation contest and public announcements of the universities’ exchange programs as evidence.
The competition cannot be said to be apolitical, as Article 9 of the event’s governing charter stipulates that placemaking projects that compromise Chinese national secrets or have negative social effects are to be excluded from consideration, it said.
The rule is a veiled reference to prevent projects that express Taiwanese localism from winning, it said.
Its rules also stipulate that the event should be broadly promoted by the media, showing that it was part of Beijng’s so-called “great external propaganda efforts,” Am Kehnn Cultural Workshop said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) yesterday said that the targeting of placemaking was a new development in China’s continued “united front” tactics.
By providing financial support, Beijing seeks to build rapport with the nation’s cultural industry, which would be a useful instrument to broaden China’s influence over ordinary people, Wang said.
Beijing’s willingness to spend money on the cultural industry in Taiwan when nearly 300 million rural Chinese are on the poverty line shows that its efforts are intended to undermine Taiwan, he said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS