Influencer Wang Wen-jui (王文瑞), known online as “Taiwan Grandpa” (台灣阿公), is a model for online “united front” propaganda, targeting central and southern Taiwan, as well as poorer and middle-class groups, National Cheng Kung University professor of political science Hung Chin-fu (洪敬富) said yesterday.
YouTuber “Pa Chiung” (八炯) on Friday released a video in which he said that Wang makes about 200,000 yuan (US$27,570) a month.
Wang, a Taipei native in his 60s, has gained a large following on Chinese social media and is known for collaborating with “Taiwan Cousin” (台灣表妹), another influencer.
Photo: Screen grab from social media
Wang has made a video saying that Ganzhou, Jiangxi, is his ancestral home and the starting point of the Long March.
“My roots are in this red land. I feel truly proud holding my hometown’s soil and never forgetting my Chinese roots,” he said.
Wang often collaborates with young Chinese influencers, once posting a video in which he was taken to an extravagant wedding banquet in China.
“I have never seen a wedding banquet like this in Taiwan, this is so extravagant,” he said in the video.
Tracing his roots and paying tribute to his ancestors is his life’s greatest wish, Wang said in an interview with Macau Satellite TV at the Straits Forum in June.
“You would benefit from visiting China because the motherland is great, even for young people,” he said. “You might even grow roots and thrive here.”
As “Taiwan Grandpa,” Wang said he hopes to contribute in whatever way he can to cross-strait exchanges.
Even though younger influencers are more popular in Taiwan, Wang’s content shows that China aims to comprehensively target all age groups and social classes in Taiwan, Hung said yesterday.
China’s “united front” strategies target small and medium-sized enterprises, middle to low-income groups, central and southern Taiwan, and young people, he said.
“Taiwan Grandpa” is meant to target central and southern Taiwan and “lower-class” people, he said.
Wang’s content is effective internal propaganda, as it portrays a struggling elderly Taiwanese moving to China and experiencing the “superiority” of China’s infrastructure and society, Hung said.
Wang’s videos might also resonate with some elderly or disheartened people in Taiwan, he said.
China’s “united front” strategies are creating a narrative in which Taiwanese of all ages and social classes can find opportunity in the “motherland,” he said.
“Taiwan Grandpa” is an example of this strategy, he added.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
RSS