A pro-China rapper blows whistle on Beijing's influencer network in Taiwan

“If we continue to cooperate with the CCP… we will become the next Xinjiang”

Originally published on Global Voices

China’s influence on Taiwan’s politics has been an open secret for decades now. However, some of the state's strategies have come into the open after a whistleblower in a pro-China influencer network publicly revealed the operation of mainland Chinese state agencies within the self-ruled region. 

The whistleblower is Chen Po-yuan, a Taiwanese rapper who is known for producing popular rap songs that resonate with the mainland Chinese pro-unification movement.

Born in 1999, the rapper travelled to Shaolin Temple in Henan province to learn Chinese martial arts when he was just 13 years old and later studied at Huaqiao University, an education institute affiliated with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Fujian Province.

On December 6, 2024, Chen spoke out in a 40-minute video produced by anti-CCP YouTuber Pa Chiung and explained how he became a pro-CCP influencer. He was depicted as a Taiwanese patriotic youth in China during the COVID-19 pandemic after producing a rap to encourage people to follow pandemic control measures.

However, he fell into a business scam staged by the son of a CCP official in Fujian, and when he tried to sue his business partner, he was labelled as a pro-Taiwan independent artist, and mainland Chinese online patriots attacked him. He then realized that under the single-party political system, there is no fairness. He warned:

若繼繼續和中共合作，我們絕對不是像香港那樣子…我們會變成下一個新疆。

If we continue to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party, we will definitely not be like Hong Kong… we will become the next Xinjiang.

China has been slammed by international society for its repressive measures against Uygurs in its Xinjiang province under the pretext of crackdowns on terrorism.

Chen, hence, returned to Taiwan and worked with Pa Chiung to expose how mainland Chinese government agencies fund Taiwan influencers to interfere with public perception of cross-strait relations. 

Taiwan became a de facto independent state after the former ruling party Kuomingtang (KMT) of the Republic of China (ROC) escaped to the island from mainland China after being defeated by the CCP in the Chinese Civil War. Under the One China Principle, the People's Republic of China (PRC) insists on sovereignty over Taiwan and, in recent years, pressed for reunification with Taiwan under its “One Country Two Systems” strategy or by force.

Under the US state-affiliated Freedom House 2022 report on Beijing's Global Media Influence, Taiwan ranked very high (55/85), and its strategies include partnerships with local media, subsidizing press trips to China, sponsoring online influencers, forging business ties, running propaganda and disinformation campaigns, etc.

Previously, in June 2024, another Taiwanese YouTuber, Potter King, revealed that agencies from mainland China had approached him and other influencers to form a political party and funded their tours to China. However, the incident did not attract much public attention as Potter King was a known DDP supporter. 

This time, Taiwanese people were appalled as the revelation came from the inside as Chen is a known pro-China influencer who had millions of fans in mainland China.

In the viral video, Chen made several phone calls to mainland Chinese agencies, including a former Taiwanese Li Dongxian, an editor from the Strait Herald and a contact from the United Front Department of Wuyishan, who invited Chen to produce more raps to promote China and criticize Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party and bring other Taiwanese influencers to China.

During the telephone conversation, mainland Chinese agencies mentioned several Taiwanese influencers, with hints suggesting they were their collaborators. Chen promised that he would provide more evidence of Beijing's patronage of the pro-China influencer network in Taiwan in another upcoming video.

As Chen Po-yuan’s video testimony went viral, mainland Chinese authorities removed all online content related to Chen from Chinese social media platforms. 

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement on December 8 stressing:

Under the Anti-Infiltration Act, no one is allowed to take instructions, commissions or funding from hostile foreign forces to engage in activities that disrupt social order, spread false information or interfere with elections.

As most of the pro-China influencers in Taiwan mainly spread positive images of China through their video programs on cross-strait cultural exchanges and tourist visits, their activities are in a legally grey area, as pointed out by Salome Wang via Voice Tank, a Facebook-based political commentary outlet.

Against such a background, lawmaker Puma Shen suggested that Taiwanese law enforcement focus on the investigation of intermediaries, including travel agencies, gangsters, academics, businesspeople and even legislators, who assist the mainland Chinese government in propaganda works and to establish a mechanism for the public to report influencers’ “united front” activities.

Yet, as freedom of expression is the corner of a democratic Taiwan, instead of silencing the pro-China influencers, some suggested Taiwanese social media users counteract mainland Chinese propaganda by spreading the positive image of Taiwan’s culture and political system on social media. After all, Taiwan's local resilience to Beijing's influence is also very high (74/88), according to Freedom House's 2022 report.

Written by Oiwan Lam