Yes, China knows about Taiwan's identity + situation

Making early morning offerings at a small temple in eastern Taichung.

Very indicative piece in the Chinese rag Global Times on a Taiwanese actress who says she converted to pro-China beliefs in college.

For most of her life, Chang Wei-shan, born in central Taiwan, had believed that people on the Chinese mainland were the enemy and Taiwan should be independent. But her views changed after entering college, when she became a firm supporter and activist of the island's reunification with the mainland.

Despite suffering obstacles, verbal abuse and even alienation from her family and friends due to her change of heart, the 26-year-old has never had doubts about her transition, instead devoting herself to preparing Taiwan for unification.

Either she's wildly misquoted, or she has mastered the art of validating Chinese propaganda on Chinese identity and Taiwan...

• "She said she was taught to be hostile to the mainland and worship Japan."
• Some netizens in Taiwan attacked her on social media, asking her to "get out and go back to China." She fought back. "Taiwan is part of China…You who don't recognize China should get out. Get out of Chinese territory and back to your motherland Japan," she posted on her social media account.

... in Chinese accounts the Taiwan identity is always the creation of Japan. This view is racially charged of course, and one of the standard attacks on Lee Teng-hui was that he is half-Japanese. KMT colonialism never plays a role, because of course that would be admitting that the Chinese are colonists. She's regurgitating the standard China line. No doubt there's a lucrative movie role in China in her future.

Interesting to me is this:

Chang laments that less than one 10th of Taiwan residents support fast unification and young people there grew up to worship Western values.

The Chinese know what the situation is in Taiwan. In fact she can even say that nobody wants to be annexed to China (glossed as "fast unification") and be quoted in a government newspaper. And... she's talking to young people. You know, the ones who will be killed in a war over Taiwan.

The government's "charm offensive" isn't aimed at the people of Taiwan. It knows it lost them. Beijing is working to plant the idea that only force can take back Taiwan and it has to convince its own young.
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Daily Links:

• My colleague and friend Greg McCann in the Diplomat on the destruction of SE Asia's environment
• Social studies curriculum to downplay China. Good.
• Bloomberg on how capital outflow controls have impacted overseas real estate markets. How will this affect Taiwan?
• Thinktank GDP forecast rises to 2%
• SPECIAL: Whole issue of current Chinese affairs devoted to failed Ma Administration. All open access

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