A hashtag titled “Taiwan Professor Urges People of Taiwan to Wake Up” appeared in Weibo’s top trending lists earlier this week, attracting over 180 million views (#台湾教授呼吁台湾人要觉醒#).
The professor in question is the Taiwanese professor Chang Ling-chen (张麟徵, Zhang Linzheng), a Political Science Emeritus Professor at the National Taiwan University who is well-known for her media commentary on current affairs.
In a video that has been disseminated on social media by the Communist Youth League and other official accounts, Chang says:
“The people of Taiwan need to wake up. Are Americans good to us? Taiwan is Chinese territory. So it needs to be defended, at all costs. The U.S. is using us as an instrument.”
She suggests that Taiwan should not want to be involved in a US proxy war with China, which will lead to people being killed on both sides of the straits (“and you are actually all Chinese”) while the US would stand by unharmed. Zhang also says:
“There are Chinese people on both sides of the strait. It is one family on both sides. What harm did “the 1992 Consensus” actually do to Taiwan? Does Taiwanese “independence” actually have any chance of success? Does the Tsai government actually have any countermeasures? No. This government is incapable of defending the people of Taiwan.”
Chang made her comments on October 27 during the Taiwan Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) conference, and specifically this part was highlighted and disseminated by official accounts on Chinese social media, where it triggered some discussions among academics and regular netizens.
One historical blogger (@西平郡御史) writes on Weibo: “If we start a war, the people of Taiwan will have nowhere to run to. They’d have to jump into the Taiwan Strait or the Pacific Ocean! This professor just delivered a simple truth: the people of Taiwan should carefully listen and reflect, and draw a lesson from what happened with Ukraine.”
“She’s a good professor, too bad she’s preaching to deaf ears,” another blogger wrote.
The current hashtag was mainly disseminated by social media accounts belonging to Chinese Communist Party and government bodies, such as local Communist Youth Leagues and regional official accounts. The hashtag and a video segment of Chang’s speech were also shared on Weibo by the Global Times media outlet.
“Professor Chang is right: it is getting harder and harder to make the Taiwan problem “right”, the situation is developing into a pessimistic direction. I hope the young people can also pay a bit more attention to international politic-related news besides focusing on their entertainment news and gaming,” one Beijing-based Weibo user said.
The Taiwan issue has been a recurring hot topic in trending lists on Weibo in 2022, especially since Nancy Pelosi’s controversial Taiwan trip and China’s ensuing military exercises followed by the 20th Party Congress, where Taiwan was also an important theme.
Last week, the hashtag “Resolving the Taiwan Issue is China’s Own Affair” (#解决台湾问题是中国人自己的事#) also popped up in Weibo’s top trending lists after Senior Colonel Tan Kefei (谭克非), spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, spoke about how American plans to expand US military assistance to Taiwan are interfering with “China’s internal affairs.” The hashtag received 790 million views on Weibo thus far, along with the hashtag “Japan Must Not Meddle in the Taiwan Issue” (#日方不得插手台湾问题#) which received over 120 million views.
By Manya Koetse
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