China’s promotion of low-priced tours targeting Taiwanese expatriates is an attempt to prevent them from returning to Taiwan to attend the Double Ten National Day on Thursday, a report by the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) to the Legislative Yuan said yesterday.
The report said Chinese “united front” tactics have grown increasingly diverse and now include the promotion of low-cost tour groups targeting expats in addition to the usual strategies of using Chinese education, supporting pro-China groups or inviting expats to feasts to undermine overseas expatriates’ support and recognition of the Republic of China (ROC).
The tour group promotions give China the opportunity to claim that Taiwanese expats no longer wish to return to Taiwan to celebrate the ROC’s National Day on Oct. 10, the report said.
Photo: AFP
China has also pushed for local education systems to adopt programs that present it as an open-minded and technologically advanced country, the report said.
The OCAC estimated that 5,000 expats would return to Taiwan for the Double Ten National Day, adding that it has prepared 162 tour routes for them to experience local hotspots and scenery.
The council added that it has followed the Executive Yuan’s policy of caring for the Taiwanese community overseas and encouraging expats to visit Taiwan.
The council said it has promoted overseas Mandarin Chinese language learning programs and has established 84 Taiwan Centers for Mandarin Learning (TCML) — 66 of which are in the US and 18 in the EU — near expat communities to promote the language.
It is also looking to establish TCMLs in Canada and the Oceania region next year.
Asked for comment, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) yesterday said China’s tactics would have no significant effect on the number of expatriates returning this year.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS