POPULAR TAIWAN CELEBRITY Chen Chih-han (陳之漢) yesterday marked China’s national day by reminding his millions of followers that their island was legally part of the mainland.
https://x.com/NuryVittachi/status/1973534484160192845
POPULAR TAIWAN CELEBRITY Chen Chih-han (陳之漢) yesterday marked China’s national day by reminding his millions of followers that their island was legally part of the mainland.
"My motherland, China, is your motherland too,” he said.
The internet star’s dramatic change of heart marks a huge shift in Taiwan residents’ attitude towards China and towards the United States—a development that is happening in other countries around the world too.
In a world riven by violent conflicts and economic struggles, China's long held anti-war stance and appetite to build is fostering a new pride in Chinese-ness, including in overseas Chinese communities.
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LIVE ON AIR
Chen spent years as an anti-China campaigner, believing the western narrative that the mainland was a giant dystopian prison—until he started visiting it this year and learned the truth about the thriving alternative community.
His wide-eyed Damascus Road experience was captured on air in a series of live YouTube broadcasts watched by millions in Taiwan and elsewhere.
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FIRST HAND WITNESS
“Having visited the mainland three times, I've witnessed first-hand the people's happiness, advanced infrastructure, rapid technological progress, and development,” Chen said in a new video this week. The artist known as Momo (看世界) translated the Taiwan star’s message into English on X.
“As Chinese, we all share this vast and magnificent land of 9.6 million square kilometers," Chen said.
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LAME DUCK GOVT
The Chinese island’s unpopular US-allied Democratic Progressive Party became a lame-duck government after a recent attempt to twist election rules to unseat democratically elected rivals was comprehensively rejected by a shocked populace.
The island is facing economic challenges, after the DPP followed Washington’s instructions to focus largely on a single unstable industry, the manufacture and sale of semiconductors.
Things turned sour when the US, under Joe Biden, worked hard to move that industry to US soil. The situation worsened when Donald Trump hit Taiwan with tariffs for exports to the US.
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POLARIZATION MAKES NO SENSE
The DPP’s Lin Chia-lung, on a visit to Poland, tried to revive Joe Biden’s polarizing “autocracies versus democracies” narrative—apparently unaware that this no longer makes sense under a Trump presidency.
The Chinese see their leadership as an Asian-style consultative democracy, while Americans see their government as having become an autocratic dictatorship with a ruler who bypasses congress and makes decisions by Executive Order.
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INTERNATIONAL LAW
China's leadership responded on Tuesday by noting that the world clearly stands with international law on this issue.
"No matter what the DPP authorities say or do… they cannot shake the international community's commitment to the one-China principle,” the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday.
Asia analysts note that while the DPP pushes a pro-independence stance, surveys show that the people of Taiwan (like the people of Hong Kong) strongly oppose any sort of fight for separation from China.
Mainlanders and Taiwan residents have essentially wanted the same thing for four decades: the maintenance of a peaceful status quo that allows for growing trade and cultural links until both sides are ready to move further.
And it's that prospect that terrifies the US State Department.
posted by Satish Sharma at
11:57
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