A propaganda coup for Beijing

The most significant result of the February visit by MAC Minister Wang was the propaganda impact for Beijing 

As Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi was wrapping up his four-day official visit to China on February 14, it was clear that the event, groundbreaking though it may have been, delivered very little in terms of concrete results — except one thing: a propaganda coup for Beijing.

Wang, a Cabinet minister in the Kuomintang (KMT) administration of President Ma Ying-jeou, was the first Taiwanese official to visit China in an official capacity since 1949, when Chinese Communist Party (CCP) successes in the Civil War forced the KMT to flee to Taiwan. Prior to Wang’s visit, relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait had been limited to exchanges between Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), two semi-official bodies created to handle dialogue.

No sooner had Wang landed in Nanjing for a series of meetings than international media and China’s propaganda arm hailed the breakthrough as something of great significance.

My article, published today in The Diplomat, continues here. (Photo by the author)