Tue, Dec 10, 2024 page3

• ‘United front’ tactics target baseball: source

  • By Chen Yu-fu and Esme Yeh / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  China’s recruitment of Taiwanese baseball coaches is part of its “united front” tactics, sources said on Sunday.

  In a 40-minute video released on Friday, Taiwanese YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” interviewed Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳伯源), who spoke about China’s “united front” efforts, saying that he had received guidance for producing content that served Beijing’s political agenda from China’s United Front Work Department while working in China.

  In the video, an official from the department affiliated with China’s Wuyishan City Government said the department had attracted a B-class Taiwanese baseball coach to work in Nanping City.

  

  Baseball players attend the Cross-strait Youth Baseball Culture Festival in China’s Fujian Province in August.

  Photo: screen grab from China Central Television

  “He began working as a coach at a young age and did not finish college, but did not secure a satisfying job in Taiwan,” and accepted the agency’s job offer, the official told Chen over the phone in the video.

  China has long devoted its “united front” efforts targeting sports, source said speaking on condition of anonymity.

  For example, Taiwanese young baseball players were invited to the Fifth Cross-strait Youth Baseball Culture Festival held in China’s Fujian Province in August, they said, adding that at the festival, they met with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤), who gave a speech on the “one China” principle and the “1992 consensus” and told the young players that China is their “home.”

  Chinese “united front” work authorities also invited Taiwanese baseball coaches to visit China and in one case, a former Chinese Professional Baseball League coach, after returning to Taiwan, hung slogans at baseball matches in local communities saying: “Both sides of the Strait are one family,” the source said.

  Some Taiwanese baseball players involved in illegal betting began a new career in China, as they could no longer be accepted by local baseball teams and broader society, they said.

  With the focus of “united front” efforts shifting to young people over the past few years, China began inviting youth baseball teams to visit China for so-called “cross-strait exchanges,” they said.

  Asked for comment, Taiwan Association of University Professors chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said the involvement of “united front” work agencies in recruiting baseball coaches from Taiwan clearly has a political purpose.

  China mainly recruited baseball coaches who had not found a good career in Taiwan rather than players, because the standard is much higher in Taiwan, and good players would either stay in Taiwan, or go to US or Japan.

  China’s “united front” efforts are aimed at baseball, because it is Taiwan’s national sport, especially after Taiwan won the championship in the WBSC Premier12 this year, Chen said.

  Taiwan’s national identity could be torn apart, with some Taiwanese bribed to function as endorsers saying that China is their “homeland,” or that Taiwan is part of China, he said.
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