Taiwan fears Chinese false benevolence offensive ahead of election

By Yimou Lee

TAIPEI, March 3 (Reuters) – The Taiwanese government believes China is ready to relaunch an offensive of niceties aimed at “opinion leaders” to win their trust, as the island prepares for presidential elections in next year in less than a year, according to an internal report from a security agency.

China, which regards democratic Taiwan as its own territory, has long applied the carrot-and-stick method to the island and, while threatening it with the prospect of a military operation, reaches out to those it judges sympathetic to Beijing’s point of view.

As Taipei and Beijing gradually resume travel ties disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan security officials hope China will revive an influence campaign that in the past included all-expenses-paid trips to China for Taiwanese politicians.

Starting this month, the campaign will focus on inviting ‘opinion leaders’ to visit China, according to a classified report by a Taiwanese security agency that studies Chinese activities on the island, including a copy was seen by Reuters.

“The Chinese Communist Party is expanding its exchange programs with Taiwan for this year. Various Taiwan-related agencies will gradually resume invitations to Taiwanese of all levels to visit mainland China,” the agency said in the February report, based on intelligence information. .

Presidential elections in Taiwan are scheduled for January next year, and authorities fear Beijing may try to foment animosity towards President Tsai Ing-wen’s government.

China refuses to speak with the government, believing Tsai to be a separatist for refusing to accept Beijing’s long-held position that China and Taiwan belong to “one China”.

Tsai rejects Chinese territorial claims, saying only the island’s 23 million people can decide its future, although she has repeatedly offered to hold talks with Beijing.

China, which has never renounced the use of force to take control of what it calls its “sacred” territory, has intensified pressure on Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty in recent years. notably by carrying out periodic military strike exercises near the island.

Beijing should try to use its campaign to convince the population to support the political parties most open to “reunification” or at least a rapprochement.

“They may want Taiwanese to support certain political parties that favor closer economic ties with the mainland,” a Taiwanese security official investigating the matter told Reuters.

The official, who declined to be named, said China may invite a range of people beyond political and business leaders in hopes of quietly promoting its political ideology.

“Exchange programs can come in the name of sport, culture or business, but what worries us is what is said in private,” the official said.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee; Additional reporting by Beijing staff; Editing in Spanish by Flora Gómez)