The mission of the United Front is to
spread China's influence by gaining control over a range of groups beyond the
mainland
Ever since a civil war split the two sides
more than 60 years ago, China has viewed Taiwan as a renegade province that
needs to be absorbed into the mainland. To that end, the legion of Taiwanese
businessmen working in China is a beachhead.
In June, hundreds of those businessmen gathered in a hotel ballroom in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. They were there to toast the new head of a local Taiwan merchants' association. They sipped baijiu liquor and ate seafood as a troupe performed a traditional lion dance for good luck. An honoured guest, senior Communist Party official Li Jiafan, stood to deliver congratulations and a message.
"I urge our Taiwanese friends to continue to work hard in your fields to contribute to the realisation of the Chinese dream as soon as possible," said Li, using a nationalist slogan President Xi Jinping has popularised. "The Chinese dream is also the dream of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait - our dream of reunification."
Li, who ended his speech to beating drums and loud applause, is a department chief in the Shenzhen arm of the United Front Work Department, an organ of the Communist Party's Central Committee. Its mission: to spread China's influence by ultimately gaining control over a range of groups not affiliated with the party and that are often outside the mainland.
United Front documents seen by Reuters, including annual reports, as well as interviews with Chinese and Taiwanese officials reveal the extent to which the agency is engaged in a concerted campaign to thwart any move toward greater independence by Taiwan and ultimately swallow up the self-ruled island of 23 million.
The United Front's 2013 annual work report for the Chinese province of Zhejiang, for instance, includes the number of Taiwanese living in the province, the number of businesses they run as well as an entry on background checks that have been conducted on the Taiwanese community in the province, an entrepreneurial hub near Shanghai.
The United Front hasn't confined itself to the mainland. It is targeting academics, students, war veterans, doctors and local leaders in Taiwan in an attempt to soften opposition to the Communist Party and ultimately build support for unification. The 2013 work report includes details of a programme to bring Taiwanese students and military veterans on visits to the mainland.
INFLUENCING POLITICS
Through the United Front and other Chinese state bodies like the Taiwan Affairs Office, which is responsible for implementing policies toward Taiwan on issues including trade and transport, Beijing has also tried to influence politics on the island, in part by helping mobilise Taiwanese businessmen on the mainland.
Many of them are heading back home this weekend to vote in mayoral elections that are being viewed as a barometer of support for Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which favours closer ties with China than does the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). A large number of those businessmen, who a senior KMT source said will largely vote for the party, will be flying on deeply discounted airfares being offered by Chinese and Taiwanese airline companies.
"The goal is simple - peaceful unification," said a person with ties to the Chinese leadership in Beijing. Soft power, not armed force, is the strategy. "To attack the heart is the best. To attack a city is the worst," the source said, quoting Sun Tzu's "Art of War".
What's happening in Taiwan is part of a broader effort by Beijing to bolster its control over restive territories on its periphery.
The United Front has long been active in Hong Kong, which is ruled under the "one country, two systems" model that enshrines a wide range of personal freedoms for its residents and which China's leaders have proposed as a model for Taiwan. Reuters reported in July that United Front operations in Hong Kong had shifted from the backroom courting of academics and businessmen to the streets, where new groups of pro-Beijing agitators were attempting to silence critics of China.
"What the United Front is doing to Taiwan now is the same as what it has been doing in Hong Kong since the 1980s - a quiet, slow but extensive penetration," said Sonny Lo, a professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and author of a book on China's covert control of the city.
Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan is a fully democratic entity. It has an army but does not have membership in the United Nations, and China has refused to rule out the use of force to gain control of the island.
Since the KMT won the presidential election in 2008,cross-Strait ties have been warmer than ever. More than 20 trade deals, including the establishment of the first direct flights between Taiwan and the mainland, have been inked. No trade agreements were signed under the previous DPP-led administration.
Taiwan's economy has become increasingly intertwined with China's. About 40 per cent of Taiwan's exports are to China andsome key sectors like technology have much of their manufacturing on the mainland.
PRIZED HONOUR
The United Front's annual work reports and handbooks provide a window into the agency's methods. It has at least 100 offices in Zhejiang.
United Front officials reported creating a more friendly business environment by helping to smooth investment problems and resolve legal disputes for resident Taiwanese. In the Zhejiang city of Ningbo, one United Front office said it spent110,000 yuan (about $18,000) to buy life and traffic accident insurance for 137 Taiwanese businessmen.
Under a "three must visit" system in effect across the mainland, United Front officials are instructed to visit Taiwanese businesspeople and their families during traditional holidays, when a family member is ill and when someone is facing economic troubles.
"They help with our business as well as little problems in daily life such as car accidents, illness and schooling for kids," said a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin, who works in the property sector in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province.
One enticement China has dangled in front of the Taiwanese business community residing on the mainland, is provincial and municipal membership in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which serves as an advisor to the government. It is a prized honour for businessmen whose livelihoods are directly dependent on the mainland. The position affords access to government officials and a form of protection in a country that lacks an independent judicial system.
"There will be a force that helps protect your business on the mainland," said Lin. "They won't make trouble if you are a CPPCC member."
FAR-REACHING DEALS
Taiwanese working on the mainland have actively lobbied for increased trade ties with China. The Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland (ATIEM), a business lobby, lists some of Taiwan's largest companies as members on its website. Several of the group's founding members urged the Taiwanese government to sign far-reaching deals with China, arguing it would boost Taiwanese business on the mainland. They held meetings with Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council to help lay the groundwork, a senior member of the organisation told Reuters.
Their efforts were rewarded when Taiwan signed trade deals in 2008 that for the first time allowed direct flights, shipping and mail links with the mainland.
The ruling KMT dismisses charges from the opposition DPP that it is benefiting from United Front activity. Kuei Hung-cheng, the KMT's director of China affairs, acknowledged the close relationship between Taiwanese businessmen on the mainland and the Chinese authorities, but said that did not mean Beijing held sway over the party. "The KMT will not be influenced or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That is not possible," he said.
UNSPOKEN CONSENT
The United Front and the Taiwan Affairs Office are also deeply involved in an activity that in Communist China is strictly prohibited: democratic electoral politics.
Taiwanese businessmen based in Shenzhen and Shanghai told Reuters they have been encouraged by United Front officials to head home to vote in past elections.
This year, the stakes are high for Beijing. The Democratic Progressive Party champions independence. The ruling KMT government backs a status quo position of "no unification, no independence, no war."
Election airlifts helped the KMT to victory in 2008 and2012. Close to a quarter million Taiwanese residents on the mainland headed home to vote in the 2012 presidential election, according to a senior member of the ruling party who estimates there are about one million Taiwanese working and living in China. As many as 80 per cent voted for KMT leader Ma, who won a second term promising closer ties with Beijing, the official said, citing an internal survey.
This year, the airlift may not be enough to turn the tide in the most important mayoral run-off - in Taipei. Final opinion polls published by Taiwan's leading media outlets showed the KMT's candidate trailing an independent by 11.5 to 18 points.
The United Front has also been working to penetrate other layers of Taiwanese society. As part of an operation called "Collecting Stars", it has targeted military veterans in Taiwan, inviting them to China for visits. In May 2012, retired Taiwanese and mainland generals who were once sworn enemies met for an invitational golf tournament in Zhejiang, United Front documents show.
Outreach to students takes the form of summer camps, corporate internships and discover-your-roots tours to the mainland. Tsai Ting Yu, a 15-year-old junior high school student who joined a trip in 2013 and in 2014, said she attended classes with her mainland hosts and visited popular tourist sites, including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.
"Before the trips, I kind of resisted the idea of China. But through the programmes I got to know them better and that resistance gradually disappeared," said Tsai. She says she is now considering doing an undergraduate degree on the mainland.
In June, hundreds of those businessmen gathered in a hotel ballroom in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. They were there to toast the new head of a local Taiwan merchants' association. They sipped baijiu liquor and ate seafood as a troupe performed a traditional lion dance for good luck. An honoured guest, senior Communist Party official Li Jiafan, stood to deliver congratulations and a message.
"I urge our Taiwanese friends to continue to work hard in your fields to contribute to the realisation of the Chinese dream as soon as possible," said Li, using a nationalist slogan President Xi Jinping has popularised. "The Chinese dream is also the dream of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait - our dream of reunification."
Li, who ended his speech to beating drums and loud applause, is a department chief in the Shenzhen arm of the United Front Work Department, an organ of the Communist Party's Central Committee. Its mission: to spread China's influence by ultimately gaining control over a range of groups not affiliated with the party and that are often outside the mainland.
United Front documents seen by Reuters, including annual reports, as well as interviews with Chinese and Taiwanese officials reveal the extent to which the agency is engaged in a concerted campaign to thwart any move toward greater independence by Taiwan and ultimately swallow up the self-ruled island of 23 million.
The United Front's 2013 annual work report for the Chinese province of Zhejiang, for instance, includes the number of Taiwanese living in the province, the number of businesses they run as well as an entry on background checks that have been conducted on the Taiwanese community in the province, an entrepreneurial hub near Shanghai.
The United Front hasn't confined itself to the mainland. It is targeting academics, students, war veterans, doctors and local leaders in Taiwan in an attempt to soften opposition to the Communist Party and ultimately build support for unification. The 2013 work report includes details of a programme to bring Taiwanese students and military veterans on visits to the mainland.
INFLUENCING POLITICS
Through the United Front and other Chinese state bodies like the Taiwan Affairs Office, which is responsible for implementing policies toward Taiwan on issues including trade and transport, Beijing has also tried to influence politics on the island, in part by helping mobilise Taiwanese businessmen on the mainland.
Many of them are heading back home this weekend to vote in mayoral elections that are being viewed as a barometer of support for Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which favours closer ties with China than does the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). A large number of those businessmen, who a senior KMT source said will largely vote for the party, will be flying on deeply discounted airfares being offered by Chinese and Taiwanese airline companies.
"The goal is simple - peaceful unification," said a person with ties to the Chinese leadership in Beijing. Soft power, not armed force, is the strategy. "To attack the heart is the best. To attack a city is the worst," the source said, quoting Sun Tzu's "Art of War".
What's happening in Taiwan is part of a broader effort by Beijing to bolster its control over restive territories on its periphery.
The United Front has long been active in Hong Kong, which is ruled under the "one country, two systems" model that enshrines a wide range of personal freedoms for its residents and which China's leaders have proposed as a model for Taiwan. Reuters reported in July that United Front operations in Hong Kong had shifted from the backroom courting of academics and businessmen to the streets, where new groups of pro-Beijing agitators were attempting to silence critics of China.
"What the United Front is doing to Taiwan now is the same as what it has been doing in Hong Kong since the 1980s - a quiet, slow but extensive penetration," said Sonny Lo, a professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and author of a book on China's covert control of the city.
Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan is a fully democratic entity. It has an army but does not have membership in the United Nations, and China has refused to rule out the use of force to gain control of the island.
Since the KMT won the presidential election in 2008,cross-Strait ties have been warmer than ever. More than 20 trade deals, including the establishment of the first direct flights between Taiwan and the mainland, have been inked. No trade agreements were signed under the previous DPP-led administration.
Taiwan's economy has become increasingly intertwined with China's. About 40 per cent of Taiwan's exports are to China andsome key sectors like technology have much of their manufacturing on the mainland.
PRIZED HONOUR
The United Front's annual work reports and handbooks provide a window into the agency's methods. It has at least 100 offices in Zhejiang.
United Front officials reported creating a more friendly business environment by helping to smooth investment problems and resolve legal disputes for resident Taiwanese. In the Zhejiang city of Ningbo, one United Front office said it spent110,000 yuan (about $18,000) to buy life and traffic accident insurance for 137 Taiwanese businessmen.
Under a "three must visit" system in effect across the mainland, United Front officials are instructed to visit Taiwanese businesspeople and their families during traditional holidays, when a family member is ill and when someone is facing economic troubles.
"They help with our business as well as little problems in daily life such as car accidents, illness and schooling for kids," said a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin, who works in the property sector in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province.
One enticement China has dangled in front of the Taiwanese business community residing on the mainland, is provincial and municipal membership in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which serves as an advisor to the government. It is a prized honour for businessmen whose livelihoods are directly dependent on the mainland. The position affords access to government officials and a form of protection in a country that lacks an independent judicial system.
"There will be a force that helps protect your business on the mainland," said Lin. "They won't make trouble if you are a CPPCC member."
FAR-REACHING DEALS
Taiwanese working on the mainland have actively lobbied for increased trade ties with China. The Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland (ATIEM), a business lobby, lists some of Taiwan's largest companies as members on its website. Several of the group's founding members urged the Taiwanese government to sign far-reaching deals with China, arguing it would boost Taiwanese business on the mainland. They held meetings with Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council to help lay the groundwork, a senior member of the organisation told Reuters.
Their efforts were rewarded when Taiwan signed trade deals in 2008 that for the first time allowed direct flights, shipping and mail links with the mainland.
The ruling KMT dismisses charges from the opposition DPP that it is benefiting from United Front activity. Kuei Hung-cheng, the KMT's director of China affairs, acknowledged the close relationship between Taiwanese businessmen on the mainland and the Chinese authorities, but said that did not mean Beijing held sway over the party. "The KMT will not be influenced or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That is not possible," he said.
UNSPOKEN CONSENT
The United Front and the Taiwan Affairs Office are also deeply involved in an activity that in Communist China is strictly prohibited: democratic electoral politics.
Taiwanese businessmen based in Shenzhen and Shanghai told Reuters they have been encouraged by United Front officials to head home to vote in past elections.
This year, the stakes are high for Beijing. The Democratic Progressive Party champions independence. The ruling KMT government backs a status quo position of "no unification, no independence, no war."
Election airlifts helped the KMT to victory in 2008 and2012. Close to a quarter million Taiwanese residents on the mainland headed home to vote in the 2012 presidential election, according to a senior member of the ruling party who estimates there are about one million Taiwanese working and living in China. As many as 80 per cent voted for KMT leader Ma, who won a second term promising closer ties with Beijing, the official said, citing an internal survey.
This year, the airlift may not be enough to turn the tide in the most important mayoral run-off - in Taipei. Final opinion polls published by Taiwan's leading media outlets showed the KMT's candidate trailing an independent by 11.5 to 18 points.
The United Front has also been working to penetrate other layers of Taiwanese society. As part of an operation called "Collecting Stars", it has targeted military veterans in Taiwan, inviting them to China for visits. In May 2012, retired Taiwanese and mainland generals who were once sworn enemies met for an invitational golf tournament in Zhejiang, United Front documents show.
Outreach to students takes the form of summer camps, corporate internships and discover-your-roots tours to the mainland. Tsai Ting Yu, a 15-year-old junior high school student who joined a trip in 2013 and in 2014, said she attended classes with her mainland hosts and visited popular tourist sites, including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.
"Before the trips, I kind of resisted the idea of China. But through the programmes I got to know them better and that resistance gradually disappeared," said Tsai. She says she is now considering doing an undergraduate degree on the mainland.
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