Since the start of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, his unpredictable and capricious foreign policy has prompted increasingly negative global views of the U.S., while views of China have improved substantially over the same period.
Similarly, Trump’s placement of high tariffs on Taiwan relative to its regional competitors and his concerted campaign to incentivize additional U.S. investment from TSMC have rapidly fed distrust of the U.S. It is no wonder, then, that the recent pro-PRC turn of one of Taiwan’s most prominent and contrarian influencers, Holger Chen (陳之漢) — sometimes dubbed the “Joe Rogan of Taiwan” — has intrigued those with positive or curious attitudes towards China.
Chen recently notched millions of views across a handful of livestreams as he shared a weeklong sojourn in Shanghai, reportedly breaking a Taiwanese record for simultaneous viewers on one stream. In August, he embarked on a sequel trip to Shenzhen to similar fanfare.
Although in 2019 he led a rally against pro-China news outlets, which have traditionally had a disproportionately large presence in Taiwan’s legacy media market, in recent months, he began criticizing what he viewed as the increasingly strident anti-China rhetoric of politicians from Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). His travels to China aimed to refute exaggerated descriptions of China’s poverty and characterizations of China’s people as a “foreign hostile force.” He has found a ready audience among those dissatisfied with the DPP and was even invited to speak at a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League event.
Chen’s sudden praise of China has been an unlikely gift for the CCP and is part of a broader global phenomenon. Popular Western entertainers like the YouTuber IShowSpeed, who hit 37 million subscribers during his visit to China in March, or comedian Jimmy O. Yang, who in June performed a week’s worth of shows in Hong Kong, have helped humanize China for international audiences. Combined with the global reach of platforms like TikTok and Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, positive and seemingly organic narratives have proven far more persuasive than China’s previous state-led propaganda efforts, which often came across as contrived or heavy-handed.
How should Taiwan respond to protect its self-rule? To maintain public support for deterrence projects, such as increasing military spending and improving resilience, Taiwan must combat Chinese propaganda about goodwill toward its neighbor across the strait.
It is impossible for Taiwan to scale up its own information apparatus to match the volume and reach of China’s state media giants, however. Both raising the intensity of anti-communist rhetoric or accusing the political opposition of being CCP fellow travelers are also unlikely to succeed. As evidenced by the failure of the recent recall elections, such narratives will only lead to voter fatigue and deeper partisan divides.
Instead, Taiwan must find its response within the systemic differences between the two countries and highlight the principles underlying the Taiwan government’s relationship with its citizens. In Shanghai, Holger Chen met a local restaurant owner who wished for swift cross strait unification. Ignoring the implicit threat that comes with Chinese rhetoric on unification, Chen replied that he could respect this wish because it clearly came with good intentions. Goodwill between two strangers with nothing to lose over a bottle of Moutai is one thing, but expecting the same from Xi Jinping (習近平) and the CCP’s other senior leaders is another.
Xi himself has championed peace in the same breath as reserving the right to use force against “‘Taiwan independence’ separatist elements,” a category that Beijing defines ever more broadly, and it continues to build specialized tools for a military operation, increase the realism of its large-scale military training, prepare legal justification to enable the use of force, and test Taiwan’s defenses in the physical world as well as in cyberspace. The Chinese state also dedicates considerable resources to repressing its critics, both inside and outside of its borders. Individuals who publicly satirize the Chinese leader are at increased risk of harassment, which does not reflect well on Xi’s personal temperament.
One crucial difference between democracies and autocracies lies in the degree of respect shown to their people. The government of Taiwan’s respect for its citizens can be observed through institutions such as the rule of law and due process but also through the implicit respect between opposing political parties in Taiwan’s politically plural environment. Partisan rhetoric invoking images of war, peace and treason can overshadow the fundamental truth that Taiwan’s parties have respected each other’s existence and right to govern through more than 25 years of regular elections and three peaceful transfers of power, not to mention the countless political rotations in local offices. It is precisely this respect for the will of the people and self-determination that makes Taiwan worth fighting and sacrificing for.
Nonetheless, the government’s push to tighten security measures across society presents challenges for the liberal rights it is obliged to uphold. Going forward, it should act with more caution. PRC nationals in Taiwan who harass dissidents or have direct connections to the Chinese state have long faced deportation, but the recent government scrutiny and occasional deportations of pro-Beijing Chinese influencers, such as “Yaya in Taiwan,” highlight tensions within Taiwan’s legal system.
Taiwan’s laws and regulations give the government broad leeway in revoking visas for PRC citizens, including for even “inappropriate acts that breach the principle of equality and dignity.” This would apply broadly, however, which makes prosecutions of a handful of influencers seem arbitrary, giving ammunition to critics, whether driven by propaganda or simply skepticism, who cast doubt on Taiwan’s freedoms by drawing parallels with Beijing’s use of vague charges to silence dissenters. As Beijing escalates its efforts to infiltrate Taiwan’s government and military through traditional spies, a state-led drive to focus on harmful speech might seem like a misuse of resources to many.
Although Taiwan’s government adjusted its policies and provided more leeway for individuals included in the spring wave of mandatory reviews of household registration for mainland spouses, the stress of locating documents from over two decades ago (often held in China’s changing internal jurisdictions) and the perception of rising social stigma toward Chinese identity damaged Taiwan’s reputation for inclusivity and cultural pluralism, especially among those affected. Moreover, traveling back to China for additional paperwork can invite detention, as appears to have happened to PRC-born book publisher Li Yanhe (李延賀), held after traveling to rescind his Chinese household registration. Li’s business had published books critical of the Chinese government.
Furthermore, Taiwanese legal scholars Bruce Liao (廖元豪) and Tori Fan (范秀羽) argue in interviews with The Reporter, this policy also clashes with the liberal principle that the state, not the individual, bears the burden of proof, so the government should have done more to explain to affected individuals what documentation was missing and offer alternative verification methods. Future security reviews should be conducted with grace, compassion and transparency from the beginning, as countering the CCP’s United Front should not be pursued to the point of unintentionally deepening the identitarian fault lines that the CCP strives to exploit.
Despite these challenges, Taiwan is categorically a liberal democracy, and its governance is fundamentally reliant on the consent of the governed. Unlike their neighbors across the strait, Taiwan’s people need not have faith in a distant, inscrutable and at times wrathful leader or party. If unsatisfied, Taiwan’s people will self-organize and vote an unpopular government out of power. In the last general election, the DPP got just over 40% of the vote for the presidency, and the legislature settled on a tripartite split with no majority party. To hammer the point home, the recent recall elections demonstrate that the public does not want to revise its choice.
The CCP seeks to use the openness of Taiwan’s society against it, erode Taiwanese trust in their political institutions and delegitimize the concept of democracy to ease the way to conquest. The best path forward for Taiwan’s government is to live up to the public’s faith in its legitimacy and to respect the popular demand for a divided government right now.
This means that both governing and opposition parties must govern within their means: partisan rhetoric should be toned down, institutions caught in partisan crossfire such as the Constitutional Court should be rebuilt through the nomination of genuine compromise candidates, and both parties should focus more on addressing kitchen table concerns that matter most to voters. With that, it is possible that the government will have an easier time getting public buy-in for defense overhauls and new security measures.
To effectively combat Chinese propaganda, Taiwan’s government need not surrender to the CCP nor embrace Cold War-style McCarthyism; rather, it can remain on a middle path, invest in its society and listen to its people. Only by making difficult compromises across partisan lines can Taiwan ensure that no influencer’s livestream will weaken its resolve.
Francis de Beixedon is an Asia researcher at a Washington think tank.
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