China's Taiwan Propaganda Organizations

The CCP values propaganda as an important tool of its domestic and foreign policy and is regarded as both a science and an art form by its proponents. Since the mid-1980s, CCP “propaganda and thought work” (xuanchuan yu sixiang gongzuo 宣传与思想工作) has been modernized to incorporate approaches from social psychology, mass communications theory, marketing, political PR and management.Footnote ⁴ The CCP-led propaganda system (xuanjiao xitong 宣教系统) links all government and private institutions, enterprises and social organizations within the Chinese public sphere. It incorporates the network of propaganda cadres installed in Party branches; the political department system of the people's liberation army (PLA); the culture, education, sport, science, technology, health and media sectors; and all public and private mass organizations.Footnote ⁵ At the pinnacle of the propaganda system, the CCP Central Propaganda Department (zhonggong zhongyang xuanchuan bu 中共中央宣传部) – partnering with relevant government agencies, depending on the policy topic – establishes the boundaries of what can and cannot be said in the Chinese public sphere.

Many mass communication specialists, media professionals and public intellectuals in China are increasingly critical of the CCP's propaganda and thought work efforts. Yet, in many ways, Taiwan-related propaganda and thought work is one of the success stories of the CCP government's attempts to mould domestic and foreign public opinion on certain issues.Footnote ⁶ The government's frames on the question of Taiwan are reproduced within the Chinese public sphere, including the traditional and non-traditional media, and they are also the norm internationally. Efforts by the ROC to expand its international space or to assert its independence result in passionate outpourings on the Chinese internet. And, unlike other aspects of contemporary CCP propaganda work, which is regarded as a “dark art” by most Chinese mass communication scholars and tends to be shunned by them as a topic because it is either too politically sensitive or too distasteful, there is a considerable contemporary literature by Chinese mass communication scholars outlining various aspects of the CCP's Taiwan propaganda efforts and analysing how better to improve them.Footnote ⁷

The CCP's Taiwan frames are set by the central Taiwan Affairs Office (guowuyuan Taiwan shiwu bangongshi 国务院台湾事务办公室),Footnote ⁸ an agency within the State Council which coordinates with the CCP Central Propaganda Department and other relevant agencies, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the PLA, to oversee China's Taiwan-related propaganda activities and agencies. Taiwan-related propaganda and thought work is an important task within the vast propaganda xitong 系统 (system); it is so important that all Party branches, regardless of their place in the Chinese bureaucracy, have a Taiwan Affairs Office, just as they always have a propaganda section. The Taiwan Affairs Office guides (zhidao 指导) a massive programme of activities aimed at moulding mainland Chinese, Taiwanese and international public opinion on the Taiwan issue, with the ultimate goal of ending the unfinished business of the Chinese Civil War under the structure of “one country, two systems” (yiguo liangzhi 一国两制).Footnote ⁹ The Taiwan Affairs Office has limited powers, but its policy “guidance” is backed up by other state agencies with stronger powers such as the State Administration of Press, Publicity, Radio, Film and Television (guojia xinwen chuban guangbo dianying dianshi zongju 国家新闻出版广播电影电视总局, hereafter SAPPRFT), and the Ministry of Public Security. As Chinese mainland relations with Taiwan have grown over the last 15 years, China's Taiwan-related propaganda channels have also expanded. The PRC has made a major investment in mainland-based television stations, websites, newspapers and radio stations specifically targeting Taiwanese media consumers.Footnote ¹⁰ The Xinhua News Service even has a dedicated Taiwan website, which, notably, has a section promoting guidelines on how netizens should discuss Taiwan in the public sphere.Footnote ¹¹ A translation of these same guidelines is provided below.

Chinese embassy officials around the world are tasked with mobilizing pro-PRC elements among the overseas ChineseFootnote ¹² and non-Chinese elites such as parliamentarians within each country,Footnote ¹³ while at the same time isolating and opposing those who promote Taiwanese independence and others the CCP regards as “anti-China” (fanhua 反华).Footnote ¹⁴ In the last five years, a Taiwanese company with strong PRC business interests, Want Want, has purchased radio and television stations, websites and newspapers in Taiwan, all of which promote the CCP's perspective on Taiwan affairs in the Taiwanese media market, frequently reprinting Xinhua items verbatim and disguised as independent reports. Want Want has used law suits to intimidate critics of its media dealings. In 2013, Want Want's owner, Tsai Eng-Meng 蔡衍明, and a consortium of Taiwanese business people with strong mainland links, tried to take over Next Media, which controls Taiwan's most influential newspapers and magazines. The bid failed owing to political controversy, but Tsai's group plan further media investments in Taiwan. In 2008, Tsai's company newsletter reported that he had met with the head of the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing and informed him that he planned to “use the power of the press to advance relations between China and Taiwan.”Footnote ¹⁵ Unlike the situation on the Chinese mainland, Taiwan has one of the most open media markets in the world. Beijing's efforts to influence public opinion in Taiwan through its Taiwanese supporters has already had a noticeable effect on free speech in the public sphere on China-related issues such as the CCP government crackdown on the student protest movement in June 1989.Footnote ¹⁶

All of the above agents of CCP influence follow a clear set of guidelines on how to steer public discourse on the Taiwan issue. In the section below, I will explore the CCP's contemporary “Taiwan” frames.

China's Current Taiwan Frames

The theory of “frames” and “framing” (kuangjia 框架; kuangjia lilun 框架理论) has taken off as a concept in Chinese language mass communications theory in the last six years, and clearly has a strong resonance with many PRC-based scholars as an analytical approach for understanding China's political communication.Footnote ¹⁷ Only a couple of scholars outside China have used framing theory to analyse communication in China.Footnote ¹⁸ Framing theory enables us to decode the process involved when political and commercial actors attempt to shape how individuals understand issues and events. Frames help to simplify and condense the world by encoding it with meaning.Footnote ¹⁹ When political or commercial actors stereotype topics in a negative or positive way, it can have a dramatic impact on an individual's subsequent choice of action; this is what sociologists call a “framing effect.”Footnote ²⁰ Thomas Nelson, Zoe Oxley and Rosalee Clawson assert that frames provide “psychological weight” to contentious issues in the public and private domain – weight that has a discernable effect in public opinion.Footnote ²¹

One of the main means by which the CCP sets “frames” in the Chinese and global public sphere is through guiding what can and cannot be said in public (censorship) and through setting correct political terminology to refer to contentious matters (in Chinese, tifa 提法 and also yongyu 用语). Perhaps more than any other topic in China, it is extremely important to use the correct frame when talking about Taiwan. In the pre-internet, pre-social media era, information on China's Taiwan frames could only be found in classified publications aimed at senior- to mid-level foreign affairs officials, propaganda cadres and media professionals.Footnote ²²

However, since 2002, signifying a major policy shift, a detailed policy document outlining the regulations on Taiwan tifa/yongfa has been widely circulated on the Chinese internet. The 2002 regulations update similar guidelines set in 1996 that had previously only been available to mid- to senior-level editors, foreign affairs workers and other officials who were the gatekeepers of the public sphere in contemporary China. This new approach is aimed at making the guidelines easily available to Chinese netizens – as of 2012, there were 564 million PRC citizens online, nearly a third of the population.Footnote ²³

The internet and social media make it possible for every citizen to be a contributor to the public sphere. Some blogs and microblog feeds in China have as many as 15 million readers, which is more than many newspaper readerships.Footnote ²⁴ The change of tactics is an official acknowledgement of the power of new media to subvert the CCP's propaganda tropes and to operate outside of the Party's traditional means of control over mainstream media. Since 2002, all new media in China, such as microblogs and texts, have been required to follow propaganda guidelines as they are regarded as tools of mass communication.Footnote ²⁵

The new approach also represents a tacit acknowledgement of the shift in governance that has been underway in China since the crisis of 1989. In 1991, an internal CCP publication proposed that references to revolution conferring the CCP the right to rule and re-conceptualize itself as a “party in power” should be dropped. This radical new suggestion gained widespread acceptance and was adopted as CCP policy during the 2002 16th Party Congress.Footnote ²⁶ As a leading economic journal noted, this change was an implicit acknowledgement of the “need to establish a new basis for legitimacy,” as the communist revolution was no longer the basis for CCP legitimacy to rule.Footnote ²⁷ China today is still a party-state but bases its legitimacy to rule on popular support rather than on moral right, a concept I have termed elsewhere as “popular authoritarianism.”Footnote ²⁸ Rather than the violent means of the past, the party-state's legitimacy is now carefully manufactured (and monitored) through assiduous political public relations, polling and other modern techniques of mass persuasion. And, unlike during the Mao and Deng era, policing of censorship breaches in the traditional media is left to state administrative organizations such as SAPPRFT and the State Council Information Office (guojia xinwen bangongshi 国家新闻办公室). In 2011, a further public sphere monitoring organization was set up, the State Internet Information Office (guojia hulianwang xinxi bangongshi 国家互联网信息办公室). This was in recognition of the fact that most Chinese citizens – especially the CCP's key target audience, Chinese 18–24-year-olds – now get almost all of their information from mobile devices. Since its founding, this organization has issued a series of new regulations aimed at better controlling online content in China. Further significant adjustments to information management have been made since the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress in 2013. The Xi administration no longer regards the traditional media as mainstream, and is adopting a multi-platform approach to both persuasion and censorship.Footnote ²⁹

The adjustment in controls is necessary not only because of the technical challenges involved in controlling information communication technology. As the “party in power,” the CCP can try to set the frames that the traditional and non-traditional media adopt, but the marketized Chinese media are no longer the “tongue and throat of the CCP” (dang de houshe 党的喉舌) that they once were. Time and again in recent years, even on taboo subjects, more commercialized Chinese media outlets will nudge at the censorship boundaries in order to make their content more appealing to media audiences. If media outlets want to attract audiences, which they must do as they no longer receive any subsidies from the government, then it is inevitable that they will attempt to adulterate the frames they receive from CCP agencies like the Taiwan Affairs Office and Xinhua and make them more appealing. On top of this commercial imperative, not all but many Chinese journalists and editors are constantly “playing line balls” (cabianqiu 擦边球), or pushing the boundaries of political censorship. Research by Gang Han shows that during the controversial 2004 Taiwanese election, despite strict instructions from the CCP about only using Xinhua reports, there were noticeable differences in the way CCP Taiwan frames were covered in the Party paper, People's Daily, versus the commercial website, Sina.com.cn.Footnote ³⁰ China's citizen-journalists and bloggers utilizing new media are even less likely to follow the CCP government's frames, unless, like the traditional media, they are made aware of the censorship boundaries and are punished if they breach them.

The 2002 policy document issued by the Taiwan Affairs Office reveals the full extent of the CCP's attempts to set the frames on public discourse on the topic of Taiwan domestically and internationally. A simplified version of the regulations was circulated in 2012 and re-circulated en masse.Footnote ³¹ However, the 2002 policy document is more authoritative and remains official policy. Although originally the document would have been classified, these days it is on Baidu.Footnote ³² It is translated in full below. The 2012 update indicates that the politically correct Taiwan terminology does not change if a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) or a Kuomintang (KMT) leader rules Taiwan. The guidelines note that the Taiwan tifa/yongyu are meant to be followed in mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong, as well as globally.

“Suggestions on the Correct Terminology for Taiwan-related Propaganda”

Taiwan Affairs Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Central Propaganda Department, Document 4, 2002.

1. (1)

   1. 1. Political authorities in Taiwan after 1 October 1949 should be referred to as the “Taiwan authorities” or “concerning Taiwan” or “Taiwan-related”; do not use the term “Republic of China” and never use the ROC calendar system.

   2. 2. Do not refer to the “Taiwan government.” Do not directly refer to the Taiwan authorities’ official organizations using terms such as “State,” “Central,” “National”; or Taiwan's so-called “Presidential Palace,” “the Five Branches of the Executive” or its subsidiary bodies such as the Ministry of Interior or Government Information Bureau. Refer to the “Taiwan authorities’ ‘competent authorities’,” or “Taiwan authorities’ ministries” and “departments.” If, owing to special circumstances, it is necessary to broadcast the actual name of the organization, you must add inverted commas or “so-called” to the name.

   3. 3. Do not use the official title of so-called Taiwanese “government” officials and politicians; instead refer to them as a “well-known Taiwanese celebrity,” a “well-known Taiwanese politician” or else “Mr” or “Madame.” In principle, the titles of Taiwan's municipal institutions and leaders can be used, such as Mayor, Magistrate, Speaker, Councillors, County Mayor, Village Mayor, Local Council, Municipal Board of Education, etc.

   4. 4. Put inverted commas around the titles of all regulatory and official documents of the Taiwan authorities and their affiliated organizations. So-called “white papers” of the Taiwan authorities should be referred to by terms such as “pamphlets” or “articles.”

   5. 5. The names of any organizations or political terminology associated with “Taiwan independence,” such as “Taiwanese self-determination” and “Taiwan sovereign independence,” should be put within inverted commas. Do not refer to the “Taiwan Solidarity Union” in propaganda materials; refer to it as the “Taiwan Solidarity Party.”

2. (2)

   1. 1. In general, do not put the institutions and leadership roles of the Kuomintang, Democratic Progressive Party, People's First Party and other political parties in inverted commas. However, the internal organizations and factions of the DPP such as the “Bureau of Chinese Affairs,” “Justice Alliance” or “Welfare Alliance” should be put in inverted commas.

   2. 2. In general, do not put inverted commas around the names of Taiwan's non-governmental organizations; however, put inverted commas around any NGOs with a governmental background such as the “Chung Hwa Travel Service” or the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office.” Avoid using the names of any anti-communist institutions such as the “Anti-Communist Patriotic Alliance,” the “Three Principles United China Alliance” or anything crowned with “ROC.” Any Taiwan NGOs and businesses with the name “China” or “ROC” can be referred to as Taiwan's “China Iron and Steel Company” and Taiwan's “Chunghwa Telecom.”

   3. 3. Taiwanese officials who come to China as individuals should be referred to as such. Taiwanese “legislators” can be referred to as “Taiwanese celebrities” or “Mr XX,” “Mme XX”; but not “Legislator XX.”

   4. 4. The names of Taiwanese universities and cultural organizations with the same name as our institutions, such as Qinghua University and the National Palace Museum, should be put in inverted commas and prefaced with Taiwan or Taibei, for example, Taiwan “Tsinghua University,” Taibei's “National Palace Museum.”

   5. 5. In broadcasts, remove the title “National” from the names of any Taiwanese schools or organizations. For example, say “Taiwan University” not “Taiwan National University,” or “XX Primary,” “XX High” instead of “XX National Primary” or “XX National High School.” For Taibei's “Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall,” do not refer to it directly, say instead “Taibei Zhongshan Memorial Hall.”

   6. 6. Do not refer to the laws of the PRC as “Chinese mainland legislation.” Refer to “legislation” in Taiwan as “the regulations in the Taiwan region.” If you must refer to the “legislation” of Taiwan in news reports, add “so-called” in broadcasts and inverted commas in print. When reporting on cross-Strait legal matters, do not use terms which imply cross-Strait legal equivalence, such as “cross-Strait legal affairs,” “cross-Strait marriage and inheritance matters,” or “cross-Strait investment protection.”

   7. 7. Cross-Strait affairs are China's internal affair; do not use the terminology of international law when referring to Taiwan-related legal matters. For example, avoid the terms “passport,” “notarization,” “legal assistance,” “extradition,” “illegal immigrants.” Instead say “travel document,” “cross-Strait notarization,” “cross-Strait administrative collaboration,” “repatriation” and “emigration.” Reports on the Taiwan Strait should not use the term “the midline of the Strait.”

3. (3)

   1. 1. When discussing national affairs in an international context, say “China” or “PRC,” do not say “Chinese mainland.” When reporting on international events, do not put Taiwan on a par with other states, refer to it as China Taiwan; or put it together with Hong Kong and Macau, as in the region of “Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.”

   2. 2. Regarding international organizations, international economic and trade associations, culture and sporting organizations where only sovereign states can participate, do not refer to “Taiwan” or “Taibei.” Use “Taibei, China” or “Taiwan, China.” In international sporting events organized by ourselves, the Taiwan team can use the name “Chinese Taibei.” Taiwan's designation in the WTO, “Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, Customs Territory” (simplified name “China Taibei”), should be referred to using the simplified name.

   3. 3. Jointly organized cross-Strait activities should be referred to as “Cross-Strait XX activities.” For cross-Strait activities involving Hong Kong and Macau, do not refer to “China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc,” rather say “Cross-Strait plus Hong Kong,” “plus Macau”; or refer to people from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan as coming from “the four areas within the cross-Strait zone.”

   4. 4. In corporate reports, advertising and notices, do not refer to the investments of Taiwanese business people in the ancestral mainland as “joint ventures” or “China–Taiwan joint ventures.” They can be referred to as “Shanghai–Taiwan joint ventures,” “Guangxi–Taiwan joint ventures.” Taiwanese investors investing in China should be referred to as “Taiwanese partners,” not “foreign partners.” Chinese provincial, municipal partners should not be referred to as “Chinese partners,” they can be referred to as “Fujian partners” or “Shanghai partners,” etc.

   5. 5. When a province organizes activities with Taiwan, report it as “a province and Taiwan” (for example, Fujian and Taiwan) or “a municipality and Taiwan” (for example, Shanghai); [and not China–Taiwan].

   6. 6. Non-Taiwan related propaganda should not describe China as “the mainland.” For example, do not refer to “reform and opening up on the mainland” or “the top ten songs in the mainland charts.” Use instead “China's reform and opening up” and “the top ten songs in the Chinese charts.”

   7. 7. Do not refer to the government of the People's Republic of China as “the mainland government” and do not preface the institutions of the central government with “mainland,” such as “Mainland State Administration of Cultural Heritage”; do not refer to national statistics as “mainland statistics.” For reporting national statistics, if they do not include Taiwan figures, indicate this in brackets.

   8. 8. All propaganda and media coverage must at all times avoid use of the word “mainland.” If there is no way to avoid using it, use the terminology “ancestral mainland” (zuguo dalu 祖国大陆).

4. (4)

   1. 1. In propaganda and broadcasts aimed at Taiwan, on the whole, do not refer to “after Liberation” [standard PRC politically correct phrasing to describe how the CCP government came to power]; instead use “before/after the establishment of the PRC” or “before/after 1949.”

   2. 2. If Taiwan compatriots return from Japan or the US or other countries to Taiwan, avoid implying that they are travelling from one country to another such as “from Japan to Taiwan;” instead say that they “came from Japan” or “they passed through Japan to return to the ancestral motherland/Taiwan.”

   3. 3. In our propaganda and broadcasts, do not describe the Minnan dialect used by the people on Taiwan as “Taiwanese language” (Taiwanhua 台湾话), do not use “Taiwanese language” in publications, do not use or promote “Taiwanese language” in public such as via “Taiwanese pop singers,” “Taiwanese pop songs” and so on. Refer [to] them as “Minnan dialect pop singers” or “Minnan dialect pop songs.”

   4. 4. Do not call Taiwan's ethnic minorities “indigenous people,” when reporting on cross-Strait ethnic minority exchanges, refer to them as “ethnic minorities of Taiwan” or call them by their specific name, such as “Ami people.” In official documents, refer to them as “Gaoshan ethnic group.”

   5. 5. With regard to what Taiwan calls the “mini-links,” in our reports refer to “direct links between Fujian coastal areas and Jinmen and Mazu Islands.” Do not use the phrase “mini-links” and do not use the phrase “three direct links.”Footnote ³³

Readers should note that these stipulations on how to refer to Taiwan in the Chinese public sphere are entitled “suggestions.” This tentative language reflects CCP awareness that while it can order Chinese media organizations to follow censorship rules, it can only “suggest” guidelines when it comes to the norms followed by the non-traditional media. The Central Propaganda Department has an uneasy relationship with the non-traditional media in China. As a Beijing University journalism professor, Jiao Guobiao 焦国标, pointed out in 2004 in a widely circulated online essay, the Central Propaganda Department is perceived by many in China as a “dark empire” with wide powers but without legal authority for its stipulations.Footnote ³⁴ Jiao was technically incorrect, as the PRC Constitution grants the CCP a leadership role over the whole of society, but his view of the Central Propaganda Department is very common in Chinese society today. Despite being a one-party state, the impact of opening up China is that, even with censorship in place, the CCP must operate within the global marketplace of ideas and information. The CCP can “suggest” its frames are utilized by the non-traditional media and use its political power to punish those who breech these “suggestions,” but until the status of Taiwan is resolved to Beijing's satisfaction, the CCP propagandists cannot assume that the government has won the campaign for domestic public opinion, let alone global public opinion. The ROC's frames on the Taiwan issue are in constant competition with the PRC's frames. CCP censorship measures can shut these views out of the mainland Chinese public sphere but they cannot completely prevent them being available to Chinese and non-Chinese outside the PRC.

The CCP government also needs to ensure that it has popular support for its policies on Taiwan. Year after year, Taiwanese public opinion polls reveal that rather than de jure independence or reunification, most people on Taiwan prefer the status quo, which is de facto independence and is always changing within the political boundaries of “no declaration of independence” and “no move towards reunification.” If PRC public opinion was surveyed on the question of how to resolve the status of Taiwan, we can assume that most Chinese people would not want outright war; most would prefer increasing engagement leading to a peaceful resolution. This is basically the PRC version of the “status quo,” although it is an open question as to whether the “status quo” will have the outcome Beijing wants or the outcome most people in Taiwan desire.

In addition to the 2002 “suggestions,” when controversial political situations arise in Taiwanese politics, the Central Propaganda Department issues specific instructions about the limits of media coverage. For example, during the hotly contested 2004 Taiwanese presidential elections, not only were the mainstream Chinese media strictly controlled as to how they reported the election but Chinese web managers were also told they must delete any posts which made any reference at all to the election.Footnote ³⁵ In 2006, when allegations of corruption swirled around ROC president Chen Shui-bian and his family, the Chinese media were told that they should only report the controversy in brief and by using Xinhua coverage, and they were forbidden from using foreign news reports on the matter.Footnote ³⁶ However, restricting the coverage to Xinhua reports still does not ensure that CCP frames are reproduced exactly; the size of a headline, the prominence given to a story or the choice of picture used can all help to subvert frames and introduce other perspectives.

The Central Propaganda Department issues regular directives on which words, phrases and images are taboo for both Chinese traditional and non-traditional media. China's leading media conglomerates and major web-based companies such as Sohu and Baidu all receive regular updates from the Central Propaganda Department on such material so that they can adjust their content accordingly. The Chinese media seldom break the rules on the correct tifa but the internet and social media are harder to control. However, technology makes it easy to manage any censorship breech. If taboo words, phrases or images are used on the Chinese internet, the user's internet access is temporarily suspended or, if they manage a webpage, that site may be closed down. Lists of taboo terms have been widely available since 2004 when hackers discovered that this information was contained in the software installed in a commonly used instant messenger software package in China.Footnote ³⁷ The most current available list features a number of Taiwan-related terms: “Blue Sky with a White Sun” flag (the Kuomintang flag) (qingtian bairi qi 青天白日旗); Democratic Progressive Party (minjindang 民进党); Cary S. Hung 洪哲胜 (a well-known Taiwan independence activist); the Association for Taiwanese Independence (duli Taiwan hui 独立台湾会); Taiwan Political Talk (Taiwan zheng lun qu 台湾政论区); the League for Taiwan Independence (Taiwan ziyou lianmeng 台湾自由联盟); the Organization for the Establishment of the Country of Taiwan (Taiwan jianguo yundong zuzhi 台湾建国运动组织); and Taiwan + Independence League (Taiwan + duli lianmeng 台湾 + 独立联盟).

The CCP not only carefully controls what Chinese people are allowed to say in public about the status of Taiwan, it also tries to limit the impact in China of the alternative perspectives that can be heard in Taiwan's public sphere and the ideological challenge of Taiwan's democratization. A 1999 propaganda policy manual stated that reports by Chinese researchers on Taiwan's politics, economy, the military and society should be strictly controlled and must be kept secret.Footnote ³⁸ However, in the current period, there is a dual-track level of information sharing of scholarly reports on Taiwan. Politically sensitive reports appear in CCP classified journals, while materials that support China's position and are less politically sensitive are made publicly available. This is in keeping with the above-noted changes to make CCP frames on the Taiwan issue more widely known and understood. Compared to a few years ago, the information now publicly available about Taiwan in China has expanded exponentially. The Chinese Academy of Social Science's Institute of Taiwan Studies lists papers on its website which range from reports on Taiwan's efforts to expand its international space, and China's response,Footnote ³⁹ to analyses of the DPP's efforts to lobby for the ROC's re-admission to the United Nations.Footnote ⁴⁰

Nonetheless, Chinese mainland-based audiences and readers are restricted from directly accessing Taiwanese people's own perspectives on Taiwanese society and politics. Only carefully vetted information on Taiwan and coming out of Taiwan is allowed into the Chinese public sphere, and only carefully vetted Taiwanese political or social leaders are allowed to visit the PRC. For example, DPP politicians are “welcome” in China – but only if they renounce Taiwan independence.Footnote ⁴¹ Scholarly exchanges with Taiwan are encouraged as long as visitors are not known Taiwan independence activists and they keep their political views to themselves when visiting the PRC. The Chinese Academy of Social Science is charged with keeping files on prominent Taiwanese social science scholars and their respective viewpoints on China.Footnote ⁴² In 2013, as part of an ever-widening of economic benefits the PRC is offering to Taiwan, the Taiwan Affairs Office announced that Taiwanese professors would be allowed to work in PRC universities after receiving “education permits,” and that Taiwanese graduates of mainland Chinese universities would similarly be allowed to apply for work in PRC government departments and enterprises.Footnote ⁴³ However, it is much more difficult for PRC scholars to visit Taiwan individually; mainland Chinese scholars wishing to attend conferences in Taiwan must get the permission of the central Taiwan Affairs Office, their local Taiwan Affairs Office and the public security bureau.Footnote ⁴⁴ They must provide a detailed itinerary of their planned activities in Taiwan and are explicitly forbidden from visiting any official institutions or politically sensitive sites in Taiwan, such as Taibei's Martyrs' Memorial or the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial.Footnote ⁴⁵

The ROC has a mature television, film, newspaper and broadcasting industry that is a potential alternative to its equivalent in the Chinese mainland. Until recently, no more than five Taiwanese films could be shown in China each year and no more than ten Taiwanese television programmes per year could be broadcast in the whole of China. Television stations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Fujian were only allowed to broadcast two programmes from Taiwan per year.Footnote ⁴⁶ But, in 2013, the PRC's SAPPRFT announced that more Taiwanese films and television programmes would be allowed into the mainland Chinese market, so long as they met the following requirements: any films and shows must be a co-production between PRC and ROC companies; the story and main characters must relate to cross-Strait issues; any creative personnel on the production team should be approved by SAPPRFT; one-third of the cast should be PRC actors; and the final cut must be approved by SAPPRFT before being shown in public.Footnote ⁴⁷ The Taiwanese film industry is struggling to survive. It receives very little government funding and must compete with Hollywood, so Beijing's offers of increased market share will be of interest to many Taiwanese companies despite the political restrictions they entail.

The Taiwanese internet is also screened from Chinese audiences. All access to news-related Taiwanese websites and online newspapers is completely blocked to PRC-based netizens.Footnote ⁴⁸ Until a few years ago, all Taiwan-based websites were off limits in the PRC. However, nowadays, non-news related Taiwanese sites can legally be accessed from the Chinese mainland.

Taiwanese journalists who wish to visit China are under strict controls. They must apply to the Taiwan Affairs Office for permission to visit the Chinese mainland on business and they may stay for no longer than one month.Footnote ⁴⁹ Chinese officials are not permitted to accept long distance calls from Taiwan-based journalists. They are warned to be “vigilant against Taiwanese and foreign spies coming into China as journalists or spreading reactionary propaganda.”Footnote ⁵⁰ Reflecting the concern about activists coming to the PRC from the ROC, Taiwan-based NGOs active in the PRC come under special management, which means that they are subjected to even more constrictive rules than those applied to foreign NGOs.Footnote ⁵¹

The PRC's attempts to manage international perceptions of what constitutes “Chineseness” is a further aspect of its global effort to combat the influence of Taiwan's de facto independence and other “splittists” such as Tibetan and Uyghur groups and Falun Gong. The PRC's “Chinese culture” frames are a deliberate challenge to Taiwan's contemporary frames, which highlight Taiwan's distinct culture and heritage. Since 2004, China has developed a worldwide network of Confucius Institutes, which are based in foreign tertiary institutions and engage in teaching Chinese language and culture. According to Li Changchun 李长春, the most senior CCP leader in charge of propaganda from 2002 to 2008, the Confucius Institutes are an important part of China's foreign propaganda strategy.Footnote ⁵² Confucius Institutes must follow PRC law as well as the law of the host country;Footnote ⁵³ this means that any staff employed there should neither be supporters of independence for Taiwan, Xinjiang or Tibet, nor Falun Gong members.Footnote ⁵⁴

China also tries to censor and restrict the promotion of Taiwanese culture and perspectives globally in other ways. For example, in 2012, PRC diplomats pressured a local government in Oregon to remove a mural painted by a Taiwanese artist which advocated independence for Taiwan and Tibet.Footnote ⁵⁵ Globally, China has frequently made protests about public parades and cultural events which feature ROC flags and Taiwan-related activities.Footnote ⁵⁶

Managing Sino-foreign and insider–outsider relations is a key means by which the CCP exerts political power.Footnote ⁵⁷ Moreover, oral propaganda (koutou xuanchuan 口头宣传) and the use of personal relationships to influence politics is a long-standing practice of the CCP. Hence, from the CCP's perspective, the ever-increasing personal contacts between mainlanders and Taiwanese have the potential to unleash an army of advocates for China's position on Taiwan – so long as these “soldiers” follow and understand the CCP frames. In 2013, the Taiwan Affairs Office announced that there had been over 320,000 Sino-Taiwanese marriages, at a rate of around 10,000 per annum.Footnote ⁵⁸ Currently, around one in five marriages in Taiwan is now between a Taiwanese man and mainland Chinese woman.Footnote ⁵⁹ In 2013, there were 240,000 PRC passport holders living in the ROC.Footnote ⁶⁰ According to China's 2010 census, there are around 170,000 Taiwanese residing in the PRC.Footnote ⁶¹ This rapid expansion in people-to-people links is a further reason why CCP agencies are now popularizing awareness of the current Taiwan frames.

However, the potential for influence can go both ways. There are indications that some Chinese visitors to Taiwan go because they want to find out more about Taiwanese politics, and in particular, how the democratic system works. From 1949 to 2008, the ROC allowed very few PRC citizens to visit Taiwan. However, since 2008, under the Ma administration, Chinese tourists have been welcome in Taiwan. In 2012, 2,586,428 PRC tourists visited Taiwan. The numbers are expected to increase.Footnote ⁶² There are currently 255 flights per week between the mainland and Taiwan.Footnote ⁶³ According to the regulations, Chinese tourists in Taiwan may only stray from their tour group with the permission of their tour leader. They may not engage in any activity which might be perceived as harmful to cross-Strait reunification. Tourism operators may not arrange tour groups to Taiwan in the name of “organizations in the field of economy, culture, health, science and technology, education, religious, academic and other cross-Strait exchanges and international events.”Footnote ⁶⁴ Such groups can only visit Taiwan if their tours are organized by their local Taiwan Affairs Office.Footnote ⁶⁵ Moreover, the regulations stipulate that Chinese tourists can only visit Taiwan if they hold a “PRC-resident Taiwan visit pass.”Footnote ⁶⁶ Chinese tourists visiting during the 2012 ROC presidential election were instructed by the PRC authorities to stay in their rooms on election day until the election results were announced. The number of tour groups allowed to visit Taiwan from the PRC was halved during the election period. However, PRC tourists watched the election coverage in their rooms and made detours to view candidate meetings. According to one woman who was interviewed by The Globe and Mail, “We like watching the debates and the [campaign] cars with the loudspeakers and also the in-depth reports about politics that we can see on the TVs in our hotel rooms. We talk about them a lot. We don't see those things in China.”Footnote ⁶⁷