Gym boss typifies Taiwan's division over China
The man known to most as Kuan Chang, 'The Manager', has a Joe Rogan-like following for his straight-talking style. You'd expect no less from someone who was a member of a triad gang and, before that, in the marines. But his visit and volte-face has elicited a huge reaction in Taiwan, dominating conversation for days, even overshadowing the trip of a former Taiwanese president to the People's Republic at around the same time.
What explains Chen's about-turn? Critics say that he's been bought off by the CCP, while supporters (and there are plenty of them) say he's just honestly describing what he saw in China. Most probably, Chen's real paymaster is the YouTube algorithm, where his live streams garnered more than 100,000 views each day. His motivations aside, the ensuing storm goes to show how deeply divided Taiwan is over the question of China, a division that is only getting worse.
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The Taipei-based political scientist Lev Nachman puts it thus: 'Taiwan has always been incredibly, deeply polarised because the fundamental questions about it are: who are we and what do we do about our future?' Politics doesn't fall on a spectrum of left to right, but green to blue: green emphasising Taiwan's independence, like the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); blue favouring engagement with China, like the Kuomintang (KMT) — yes, the CCP's erstwhile enemies.
These are rough labels because both extremes are political no-go zones: the Taiwanese know that any declaration of independence is an invitation for war, while there is next-to-zero appetite for unification with the People's Republic.
One problem facing the democracy is that while the DPP holds the presidency, as of last year's election, the KMT is the biggest party in the legislature.
This has produced unedifying chaos. Fist fights in the chamber (hospitalising five) erupted last year when KMT legislators rushed through reforms to expand their power against the executive. Street protests followed. The reforms were quashed by Taiwan's Constitutional Court but a frustrated DPP retaliated, calling on voters to recall KMT legislators en masse. More than 30 of them face a recall vote this month.
'We are in another election year. It's unprecedented,' says Brian Hioe, editor of Taiwan's New Bloom magazine. Polls suggest that voters are generally against the so-called 'Great Recall'. After all, they only chose these legislators a year ago. There's no guarantee on the outcome. 'Both sides are trying to drive turnout,' says Hioe.
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Are these the signs of a healthy democracy or an indulgent tussle between navel-gazing politicians? I lean to the latter. Just as Brexit narrowed the British government's bandwidth for dealing with other pressing issues, and just as the subsequent parliamentary wrangling and debate over a second referendum appealed to different definitions of the democratic mandate, Taiwan's political turmoil is splitting society, with both sides accusing the other of bad faith.
Ultimately, it means that the domestic issues that drove so many voters out last year — soaring property prices, stagnant wages, the rising cost of living — are not being tackled.
It also means that the high-stakes dance with China is reduced to tribal party politics. To make life hard for the executive, the KMT-controlled legislature has cut defence budgets on projects such as Taiwan's submarines, citing fiscal discipline. And a DPP campaign to root out spies has embroiled 12,000 Chinese immigrants in a loyalty test, where they must prove that they have relinquished any Chinese residency rights to maintain their Taiwanese residency. (The irony is that many of them have had to travel to China to do the paperwork.)
Meanwhile, voters on both sides have become increasingly mistrustful of what they hear on traditional media.
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In this febrile environment, influencers like Chen become more crucial. A recent Reuters Institute poll found that nearly half of Taiwanese get their news from YouTube. Mainstream outlets are declining in importance, especially among the young.
The changing media landscape might also be changing public opinion: whereas Taiwan's young have traditionally been more China-sceptic and likely to identify as only Taiwanese, a recent poll from the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation found that, now, a smaller proportion of 20 to 24-year-olds identify as Taiwanese compared with over-25s. Just as Gen Z in the West seem less 'woke' than millennials, could Taiwan's Gen-Z be less sceptical of China?
If this phenomenon is real (still an 'if'), The Manager may be on to something with his U-turn.
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