Chinese researchers have proposed a “shadow government” with which the Chinese Communist Party would rule over Taiwan following the island’s potential annexation, the latest indication that Beijing would brutally take out its enemies in such a scenario.
The plan comes from a team at Xiamen University’s Cross-Strait Institute of Urban Planning and was published earlier this month, then translated by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Xiamen, which is located in China’s Fujian province, is only a few miles away from the Taiwanese island of Kinmen.
The Xiamen University paper states that the Chinese regime would need to move more swiftly in Taiwan than it did after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong by the United Kingdom. “The depth and breadth of the takeover will be far greater than in Hong Kong in 1997, so preparing plans for the comprehensive takeover of Taiwan after ‘reunification’ is already an urgent matter,” the Xiamen academics wrote.
They proposed the creation of a “Central Taiwan Work Committee” that the government would set up “as soon as possible,” then send to Taiwan after annexation. It would study “post-takeover policies such as the application of laws, currency conversion, mainland-Taiwan infrastructure integration, customs, international travel, and screening of military personnel, civil servants, and teachers.”
The three purposes of that committee would be to bolster the Chinese regime’s understanding of Taiwanese institutions and how they could be adopted or changed after takeover, galvanize the efforts of Beijing’s political allies in Taiwan’s current political system akin to how the Communist International supported the CCP, and “smooth the impact of regime change” by working with Taiwanese elites to help craft Beijing’s plans for the takeover.
The paper’s mention of Beijing’s allies in Taiwan seems to be a nod at the CCP’s extensive “united front” influence operations and espionage campaigns in the country, though it also notes that these “anti-Taiwan independence forces” have grown less influential in recent years.
The plan also calls for the immediate creation of a “Taiwan Governance Experimental Zone” in Xiamen or nearby Nan’an City, both of which the paper notes are adjacent to Kinmen and have mountains and a culture similar to that of that Taiwanese island.
The experimental zone would simulate Taiwan’s political structure, enacting policies such as the elimination of the traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan but not mainland China and the phasing out of Taiwan’s currency.
The Chinese authorities would also train CCP cadres in the experimental zone, primarily consisting of retired Taiwanese soldiers, civil servants, and teachers.
The Xiamen University paper is just the latest indication that Beijing would govern the island with an iron fist, in the event of its absorption by the mainland, and although it was published by academics, it is consistent with previous Chinese-regime statements.
Increasingly, Chinese-government officials have spoken about how Beijing would rule over the island after annexation, with China’s ambassador to France Lu Shaye in 2022 stating that the party would carry out a widespread “reeducation” campaign
Last year, the party’s prominent Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Conference body purportedly passed a resolution urging the Chinese authorities to craft a “Taiwan Province Separatist Forces Blacklist,” which would include the names of prominent Taiwanese individuals to execute.
The author of that resolution, who posted to social media about the CPPCC’s vote to approve it, also called for the execution of Taiwanese president William Lai, who was the country’s vice president at the time.
Then, earlier this month two Chinese agencies — the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the Ministry of Public Security — posted a list of “diehard ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionists” to their websites, according to the Global Times, an English-language propaganda organ.
The members of that list include Taiwanese vice president Bi-Khim Hsiao, national -ecurity council secretary-general Joseph Wu, and several other Taiwanese officials.