Entertainers will now join military personnel, educators and public servants in a priority round of checks as Taiwan expands its investigation into people suspected of holding both Taiwanese and Chinese IDs. It's part of Taipei's efforts to stop the Chinese Communist Party’s apparent attempts to "integrate” Taiwan with China.
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00:00Entertainers and influencers will join military personnel, public servants and educators
00:06on a list of professions whose identities will be scrutinized by the Taiwanese government.
00:12Taiwan is looking for people who hold both Chinese and Taiwanese identity documents,
00:16and for those caught holding both, they'll have their Taiwanese ID revoked.
00:21This latest announcement regarding entertainers comes from Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council,
00:26which handles relations with China, after several Taiwanese influencers and artists
00:31were exposed for posting pro-unification messages on social media, and a Chinese
00:36influencer living in Taiwan had her residency revoked for the same reason.
00:41The suspicion is that some of these artists may have been recruited or otherwise influenced by
00:47the Chinese Communist Party in attempts to, as President Lai put it in a press conference last
00:52week, confuse Taiwan's national identity, and part of that recruitment process could involve
00:58coaxing people with wide spheres of influence to apply for Chinese IDs. Taiwan says it's all a
01:04part of a wider campaign by China to influence and infiltrate Taiwan through a range of means,
01:11bringing Beijing closer to its ultimate goal of taking control of Taiwan.
01:16The practice of revoking Taiwanese IDs isn't a new one. In an interview with the Liberty Times,
01:22Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Qiu Chuizheng said that almost 700 people had had their Taiwanese
01:28identities revoked in the last decade after being discovered holding Chinese ID documents,
01:34in accordance with the Cross-Strait Relations Act. But while not new, the scope of this most
01:39recent campaign does seem larger and more targeted, and we'll also investigate whether
01:44any of these artists have engaged with political propositions from the Chinese government,
01:50also a potential violation of the law. And while the first round of investigations will
01:55target entertainers, educators, the military and public servants,
02:00Qiu has said that private and public enterprises will face investigation next,
02:05furthering the scope of this coordinated attempt by the Taiwanese government to,
02:10as it says, protect its sovereignty. Andy Scheer, Howard Zhang and Rhys Ayres in Taipei for Taiwan+.