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.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
CHINESE INCURSIONS, SORTIES: President William Lai thanked military officers for shouldering the responsibility of defending the survival and development of Taiwan President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that aggression would inevitably fail, pointing — on the day before a mass military parade in Beijing — to the lessons from World War II and key victories Taiwan claims against Chinese forces in 1958. Taiwan has over the past five years repeatedly complained about heightened Chinese military activity including war games around the nation as Beijing steps up pressure to enforce territorial claims that Taipei rejects. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, are to oversee a military parade in Beijing today to mark the
RSS