China woos new generation of Taiwanese with junkets

They’re a far cry from the usual tourist fare. The pictures show huge red banners hanging from the lobby of an upmarket hotel exhorting his Taiwanese homeland to cast its lot with rival China.

“One China,” they read. “Oppose Taiwan Independence, Support Unification.”

The conference on Taiwan-Mainland unity, held last December in the Chinese territory of Macau, hardly seems a natural draw for students like Huang, who are far more likely to spend a vacation on Bali’s pristine beaches or taking in Europe’s vaulted cathedrals.

But over the past several years, a new generation of Taiwanese has been participating in all-expense-paid Chinese junkets aimed at promoting union with the mainland and combating the independence-leaning policies of President Chen Shui-bian.

These events — seminars, camps, university programs and academic conferences — are part of a well-coordinated effort to show a kinder, gentler side of China to the democratic island of 23 million people, which split from the mainland amid civil war in 1949. Their principal target is Taiwan’s future opinion makers, including graduate students and junior academics.

For much of the past 58 years, China’s Taiwan policy has been dominated by saber-rattling — the deployment of 800 missiles aimed at Taiwanese targets, for example, or repeated threats to invade if self-governing Taiwan were to move to formalize its de facto independence.

Still, said Tsai Sheng-dung, deputy director of the Mainland Affairs Council — Taiwan’s Cabinet-level body in charge of relations with Beijing — China’s new push is no surprise, because Beijing regards young Taiwanese as crucial elements in the struggle for national unity.

“China has always seen the youth of Taiwan as key trend setters for the future of the nation,” he said. “Working with Taiwan’s youth to create a sense of identification has become a key part of China’s efforts toward Taiwan.”

According to Tsai, the cultivation of Taiwanese young people has expanded rapidly in recent years, with some 7,000 participating in Chinese-sponsored events in 2006 and an even higher figure expected this year. That doesn’t include the 5,000 Taiwanese enrolled full-time in Chinese universities.

Huang attended the Macau seminar at the Golden Dragon Hotel on the initiative of his professor in the mainland studies department at Taipei’s Chinese Cultural University.

For four days, Huang and 40 fellow students sat within earshot of Macau’s famous gambling tables and sumptuous gourmet restaurants as communist officials talked up unity between China and Taiwan — and repeatedly lambasted Chen’s pro-independence line.

At least in Huang’s case, the persuasion effort fell short.

“They didn’t change my mind at all,” he said. “I’m against both unification and independence — I support the status quo.”

Huang believes a key goal of the seminar was to inculcate a strong Chinese identity among the participants — something diametrically opposed to Chen’s insistence that China is a foreign country.

“There were all these banners in the hotel about how people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are descended from the legendary Chinese emperors,” he said. “There was even this guy walking around with a sign saying ‘one China’ and blasting Taiwanese independence. It was not a subtle sell.”

Huang’s reaction closely mirrors that of Hsu Yung-ming, 40, a researcher at the prestigious Academia Sinica in Taipei who attended an all-expense paid academic conference on cross-strait relations at a luxury hotel in Beijing last summer.

Though a strong supporter of Chen’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Hsu was unsurprised to find himself on the guest list.

“I think they want to show they’re willing to talk to everyone and not just the opposition,” he said.

He dismissed the academic value of the conference as “merely talking shop” but said his Chinese counterparts appeared to relish the opportunity to gain some insight into contemporary Taiwanese thinking.

“They tried very hard to interact with us,” he said.

The conference had no impact on Hsu’s anti-unification sentiments, which he said have grown more pronounced since Chen became president in 2000.

“Ten years ago I may have thought of myself as Chinese,” he said. “But now I’m Taiwanese. I’m not Chinese at all.”

Such certainty eludes Shaun Chang, 36, who has studied media for the past three years at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, home to about 100 Taiwanese students.

Chang, whose grandparents came to Taiwan from mainland China in 1949, says she goes out of her way to disguise her background.

“When I’m in cabs in Beijing I speak with a local accent to hide the fact that I’m Taiwanese,” she said. “If anyone asks me where I’m from I say I’m a Taipei-er living in Beijing — never someone from Taiwan. I guess I’m kind of rootless.”

But even if she appreciates several aspects of life in China — particularly its rapid economic growth — she resists thinking of herself as exclusively Chinese.

“I always try to think what is best for my people — the Taiwanese first and then afterward the Chinese,” she said. “Because for me, the Taiwanese still come first.”

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