FEATURE: CCP uses Matsu as campaign influence tool – 台北時報 Feedzy

CHECKING UP:
Security officials have been observing religious groups’ connections to China’s United Front Work Department, saying it is trying to influence the elections

By James Pomfret and Yimou Lee / Reuters, DAJIA, Taiwan

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is ramping up exchanges with folk religious groups in rural Taiwan in an attempt to manipulate political opinion in Beijing’s favor ahead of elections next month, Taiwan government documents and security officials say.

Religious trips across the Taiwan Strait increased this year after the end of China’s years-long “zero COVID-19” policy, a review of the Web sites of the Chinese government, CCP-run religious groups and state media showed.

Dozens of the trips were focused on the worship of Matsu (媽祖), a sea goddess whose 10 million Taiwanese adherents make her the nation’s most popular deity.

Reporters examined five Taiwanese security documents and interviewed five Taiwanese security officials, as well as five Matsu temple leaders and four analysts. They provided previously unreported details of how CCP officials tried to build ties with religious establishments with inducements such as subsidized trips to China. Some of them spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.

In response, Taiwan has stepped up monitoring of religious activities with China, including Matsu, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said.

The campaign comes ahead of the Jan. 13 presidential and legislative elections, which five Taiwanese officials said Beijing is trying to influence in favor of parties supporting closer ties with China.

The CCP has established influence over faith in Matsu in Taiwan through mediums such as its Religious Affairs Administration — which also engages with Christians, Buddhists and Taoists in the nation — an intelligence report reviewed by reporters in October said, which security sources described as Taiwan’s most recent analysis.

The administration is overseen by the CCP’s United Front Work Department, a network of groups that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has described as a “magic weapon” to bolster Beijing’s reach abroad.

The United Front Work Department and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) did not return requests for comment.

At least five Taiwan Matsu temple associations have contacts with six Chinese counterparts, all of which are run by the administration, the document said.

It did not provide supplementary evidence.

A document — an analysis that cited Taiwanese intelligence on Chinese activities — said China sees that faith, which has the closest ties with Beijing, as the “axis” of its influence operations.

Matsu’s origins go back to China’s Fujian Province, directly across the Strait from Taiwan. Millions of Chinese also worship the goddess.

While China is officially atheist, the United Front Work Department has long used folk religions to build ties with Taiwanese believers, many of whom regularly visit China for pilgrimages, two United Front reports from 2020 and 2016 said.

Chinese state media said in September that Matsu-related exchange programs play a “key role” in the “peaceful reunification” of Taiwan.

The MAC told reporters that it welcomed genuine religious exchanges with China, but would step up monitoring and engagement with Taiwanese temples to “reduce the operational space” for the United Front Work Department.

In late October, half a dozen Matsu and Buddhist leaders held a religious ceremony in a temple in the mountains of central Taiwan.

“We wish for Taiwan to be a blessed island, not an island with military arsenals … not to become an island of battlefields,” the clerics chanted in front of gilded statues of the Buddha and Matsu, a video of the event showed.

While clergy around the world regularly pray for peace, the language alarmed two security officials investigating voting interference, who say it echoed China’s framing of the upcoming election.

Beijing views the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), who has consistently led in the polls, as “dangerous separatists.” It has warned that a vote for the DPP is tantamount to voting for a war across the Taiwan Strait.

Senior officials from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have also made similar comparisons.

In contrast, Beijing signals to Taiwanese voters that “supporting pro-China parties means peace,” one official said.

Asked about the similarity of its messaging, the KMT said it is an “indisputable fact” that the DPP is leading Taiwan to the edge of war due to a lack of communication with China.

Lai has repeatedly said during the campaign that he does not seek to change the “status quo.”

This religious push comes alongside ramped up Chinese military drills near Taiwan, which sees them as part a “multifront campaign” to sway voters. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army released a propaganda video as it conducted exercises around Taiwan in August, showing fighter jets and submarines alongside Matsu, as a narrator called Chinese forces and the goddess protective influences across the Taiwan Strait.

Also of interest to the security officials was the location of many temple activities.

One of the officials said Taiwan was aware of a recent push by Beijing to build “ties with small-to-medium-sized shrines and temples” outside Taiwan’s largest cities.

Such rural networks are “an effective system for spreading rumors locally” and help shape public opinion, the official said.

Wen Tsung-han (溫宗翰), an academic who has researched Taiwanese folk beliefs, said China seeks influence over rural temples because they play a larger role in the everyday life of believers compared with urban religious centers.

“They can reach social organizations or local societies, which are capable of influencing election results,” he said.

Between 2018 and 2020, China organized more than 70 large-scale mutual temple visits with Taiwan, involving at least 20,400 people, a government report that detailed dates of the trips and the temples’ Chinese contacts showed.

At least nine of the trips were partially financed by the Chinese government, it said.

This year, Beijing sponsored trips to China for hundreds of Taiwanese politicians, unnerving officials who are investigating the travel for alleged contraventions of election and security laws.

Chang Chien-huang, who manages a Matsu temple in a Taipei suburb, told reporters he had been invited to China on religious exchanges that saw Chinese officials join him for banquets with alcohol.

Two other security officials said they saw such trips as “opportunities” for China to gather intelligence and recruit sympathizers to conduct influence campaigns.

Cheng Ming-kun (鄭銘坤), head of the Taiwan Matsu Fellowship, an influential Matsu network with more than 180 temples as members, says direct engagement with Beijing is important.

“We need to increase exchanges so that we don’t walk toward a war,” he said.

“Director Song is an old friend,” he said, referring to TAO Director Song Tao (宋濤). “The [Chinese] central government thinks Matsu would bring stability and peace.”

Cheng denied being a CCP representative, but said he hoped the election would bring a change in government.

Taiwan is monitoring more than 40 major temples and religious centers, as well as dozens of religious figures it suspects of having ties with the United Front Work Department and Chinese policymakers, three documents showed. None of the associations named in the documents are accused of illegal acts.

Some politicians have called for tighter laws to counter Beijing’s religious incursions.

A planned pilgrimage last month to Taiwan by the Matsu temple on China’s Meizhou island was recently canceled. The temple wrote on Facebook — a social media platform banned in China — that Taiwanese authorities used “every possible means to create difficulties” and its blocking of the pilgrimage amounted to “disrespect” toward the gods.

The MAC has said it did not block the pilgrimage. The government has said the applicants did not send in required supplementary details.

Chang said he received more invitations to visit China this year from various Matsu associations, including one to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen that offered temple visits, a China-Taiwan student baseball competition and a drone show.

However, this time, he declined them, saying the upcoming election would raise questions about the trip.

“Religion should be neutral,” he said. “We shouldn’t take sides.”