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 merchantsâ 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.
âI 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,â said Li, using a nationalist slogan President Xi Jinping has popularised. âThe Chinese dream is also the dream of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait â our dream of reunification.â
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 Partyâs Central Committee. Its mission: to spread Chinaâs 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 reviewed by Reuters, including annual reports, instructional handbooks and internal newsletters, 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 Frontâs 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 hasnât 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, reviewed by Reuters, 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 towards 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 Taiwanâs 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.
Š REUTERS/Pichi Chuang/Files A protester sleeps inside Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, during a protest to oppose the controversial trade pact with mainland China, in Taipei in this April 5, 2014 file photo. âThe goal is simple â peaceful unification,â said a person with ties to the Chinese leadership in Beijing. Soft power, not armed force, is the strategy. âTo attack the heart is the best. To attack a [walled] city is the worst,â the source said, quoting Sun Tzuâs âArt of War.â
Questions sent by fax to the Beijing office of the United Front Work Department were not answered. The Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office referred Reuters to a statement on its website saying it does not comment on elections on âthe island.â
Whatâs 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 âone country, two systemsâ model that enshrines a wide range of personal freedoms for its residents and which Chinaâs 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.
âWhat the United Front is doing to Taiwan now is the same as what it has been doing in Hong Kong since the 1980s â 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. Earlier this year, Chinese and Taiwanese officials held their first official meeting since 1949.
Taiwanâs economy has become increasingly intertwined with Chinaâs. About 40 percent of Taiwanâs exports are to China and some key sectors like technology have much of their manufacturing on the mainland. The worldâs biggest electronic components maker, Foxconn Technology Group ,, which assembles Apple Incâs iPhones, has many of its plants in China.
Taiwan presidential spokesperson Ma Weikuo said Taiwanese heading home to vote were exercising their right as citizens. âIt is normal that Taiwanese businessmen living in Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, Europe, Japan and other parts of the world want to return to Taiwan to vote,â she said.
PRIZED HONOUR
The United Frontâs annual work reports and handbooks provide a window into the agencyâs methods. It has at least 100 offices in Zhejiang. The 2013 work report said 30,000 Taiwanese business people and their families were living in the province and 6,800 Taiwanese enterprises had operations there at the end of 2012.
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 spent 110,000 yuan (about $18,000) to buy life and traffic accident insurance for 137 Taiwanese businessmen.
Under a âthree must visitâ system in effect across the mainland, United Front officials are instructed to visit Taiwanese business people and their families during traditional holidays, when a family member is ill and when someone is facing economic troubles.
âThey 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 Peopleâs 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.
âThere will be a force that helps protect your business on the mainland,â said Lin. âThey wonât make trouble if you are a CPPCC member.â
Holding CPPCC membership is a violation of Taiwanese law that bars citizens from taking positions in state or party bodies in China. It is, however, legal to be an honorary, non-voting CPPCC member. The Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland (ATIEM), which lists some 130 Taiwanese business associations across China as members, met with Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in December 2012 to try changing that.
Their bid to persuade him to allow Taiwanese citizens to become full-fledged CPPCC members ultimately failed. Taiwanâs Mainland Affairs Council announced that same month that Taiwanese could not sit on the CPPCC.
Earlier in 2012, Taiwanâs National Security Bureau had handed a list of 169 Taiwanese suspected of being CPPCC members to the islandâs Mainland Affairs Council, which implements policy towards China on a wide array of issues including business, shipping and travel. The council whittled the list down to 32. Ultimately, no one was punished after Taiwanese authorities determined those named were all either honorary CPPCC members or werenât holders of a Taiwanese passport.
FAR-REACHING DEALS
Taiwanese working on the mainland have actively lobbied for increased trade ties with China. ATIEM, the business lobby, lists some of Taiwanâs largest companies as members on its website. Several of the groupâs 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 Taiwanâs 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.
ATIEM hasnât always been on the winning side. In March, students occupied the Taiwan legislature in a bid to block passage of a deal that would have allowed for freer trade with China. The protests, dubbed the Sunflower Movement, fed off fears the pact would give China greater sway over Taiwan. The protest ended when parliament agreed to suspend a review of the bill.
ATIEM did not respond to questions sent by email.
Some Taiwanese officials warn against United Front encroachment. In late September, the head of Taiwanâs Overseas Community Affairs Council, which handles matters related to citizens living overseas, told a parliamentary committee that the United Front was stepping up work among Taiwanese business leaders and younger Taiwanese on the mainland and abroad.
âThey are drawing the Taiwanese who are more receptive to China over to their side, exerting pressure on Taiwanâs government and affecting its mainland policies,â Alexander Huang, a former vice chairman of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which is responsible for ties with China, told Reuters. He didnât cite specific examples.
Mainland Affairs Council spokesperson Wu Mei-hung said United Front activity shouldnât be interpreted in an âoverly negative way.â
âChina has some political intentions,â she said. âBut Taiwan has its own advantages in terms of systems, core values and soft power. All of these, we hope, will impact China via exchanges.â
The ruling KMT dismisses charges from the opposition DPP that it is benefiting from United Front activity. Kuei Hung-cheng, the KMTâs 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. âThe KMT will not be influenced or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That is not possible,â he said.
A MAGIC TOOL
The United Front is a legacy of the earliest days of Leninist communist revolutionary theory. Chinaâs version of the United Front, dubbed a âmagic toolâ on the agencyâs own website, helped the Communist Party become established on the mainland and ultimately prevail in a civil war that forced Chiang Kai-shekâs Kuomintang (KMT) to retreat to Taiwan in 1949. The United Front has as its primary goal the promotion of âmotherland unificationâ and blocking of âsecession.â
A 2007 handbook for United Front workers in Beijing instructs cadres to âunite neutral forces in order to divide and attack enemies.â It also directs them to âmake friends extensively and deeply with representatives from all sectorsâ in Taiwan and abroad to âform a mighty troop of patriots.â
A senior Taiwanese defence official, who did not want to be named, referred to the United Frontâs tactics as a âwar.â The ultimate goal was âto overturn the Republic of China,â he said, using Taiwanâs official name.
The frontâs activities havenât been confined to harnessing China-friendly forces. The southern Taiwanese city of Tainan, which is a bastion of the pro-independence DPP, has been singled out. One group in the city that has gotten special treatment is doctors, who have been invited on trips to the mainland, according to a 2011 work report from an organ associated with the United Front.
The visits had “successfully enhanced identification with the motherland among some pro-green Taiwanese,” the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, a nominally independent political group that is permitted to operate by the Communist Party, wrote in its report. Green is the colour associated with the opposition DPP.
Some politicians in Taiwan unabashedly favour unification. Among them is Chang An-lo, the head of a pro-unification party. Known as the White Wolf, Chang was once a leader in a triad group, a traditional Chinese criminal syndicate, called the Bamboo Union. He lived for a decade in China as a fugitive from the law in Taiwan but ultimately was never tried. He also spent ten years behind bars in the U.S. on drug-smuggling charges.
Sitting in his office in Taipei dressed in a white jacket and black shirt, Chang says he and his party have regular contact with Beijingâs Taiwan Affairs Office and he has âfriends in the United Front.â The Chinese government, he says, has provided all-expenses paid trips for members of his party to the mainland. âGetting carrots from China is better than getting sticks,â he says.
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 âno unification, no independence, no war.â
Election airlifts helped the KMT to victory in 2008 and 2012. 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 percent 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 â in Taipei. Final opinion polls published by Taiwanâs leading media outlets showed the KMTâs candidate trailing an independent by 11.5 to 18 points. A victory for the independent would mark the first time in 16 years that the KMT has not ruled the capital.
But Beijing isnât giving up. More than a dozen airlines, including state-owned Air China and Taiwanâs largest carrier China Airlines, have agreed to provide discounted flights from the mainland to Taiwan at the end of November, according to a notice sent to members by ATIEM. The Beijing-based organisation lists the Chinese minister in charge of the Taiwan Affairs Office as an honorary chairman on its website.
A senior official at Taiwanâs China Airlines told Reuters that âwith tickets selling at 50 percent off, airlines will incur losses.â But the carrier would nevertheless â100 percent meet the demand from Taiwanese businessmen.â
China Airlines spokesman Jeffrey Kuo said the company was offering âpromotional tickets for all flightsâ because November was âthe low season.â Air China did not respond to questions sent by fax and email to its Beijing office.
Chinaâs Taiwan Affairs Office said it was aware that Taiwanese businessmen wanted to vote in the elections. ATIEM had negotiated with airline companies to allow them to fly home, it said.
He-tai Chen, president of the Taiwan Merchant Association in Shenzhen, said the Taiwanese business community on the mainland was âChina’s best public relations tool.â
âThere are 7 to 8 votes in my family,â he said. âAnd am I not the one who decides to whom those votes go?â
The United Front has also been working to penetrate other layers of Taiwanese society. As part of an operation called âCollecting Stars,â 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.
âBefore the trips, I kind of resisted the idea of China. But through the programs I got to know them better and that resistance gradually disappeared,â said Tsai.
She says she is now considering doing an undergraduate degree on the mainland.
(Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim in Beijing and John Ruwitch in Shanghai. Editing by Peter Hirschberg, Michael Williams and Bill Tarrant)