By Yimou Lee

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Nearly 40,000 Taiwanese joined industry events in China, including conferences and trade fairs supported by the Chinese government in 2024, according to a study released on Tuesday. This comes as Beijing increases its charm offensive toward Taiwan alongside military pressure.

China regards democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, despite objections from Taipei, employing both threats of military action and outreach to those it believes may align with Beijing’s views.

Taiwanese security officials remain cautious of what they interpret as Beijing’s influence campaigns aimed at swaying public opinion, especially as travel links between Taipei and Beijing resumed post-COVID-19. However, the scale of these programs has not been systematically documented until now.

Approximately 39,374 Taiwanese participated in over 400 business events supported or organized by government entities across China last year, per the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG), a Taiwan-based non-government organization.

IORG’s research scrutinized more than 7,300 articles from a news portal operated by China’s top Taiwan policymaker, the Taiwan Affairs Office. These articles included event specifics like scale, location, and agenda, and were analyzed using AI tools verified by IORG researchers.

The number of Taiwanese attending state-supported business events in China represented a 3% increase from 2023, particularly in agriculture, tourism, biotechnology, and medical industries, which are sectors where the Chinese Communist Party exerts political pressure on Taiwan.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Wang Huning, the Communist Party’s fourth-ranked leader, stated in February that efforts were being made to enhance people-to-people exchanges to “deepen cross-strait integration and development,” as reported by state news agency Xinhua.

Among the 2024 events surveyed by IORG was a job fair in Fujian province targeting over 1,500 Taiwanese university graduates held in June.

IORG co-director Yu Chihhao commented, “Reward and punishment always go hand-in-hand in the Chinese influence campaigns on Taiwan. Military drills and intimidation are punishment; cross-strait business cooperations are reward.”

Recently, China conducted two days of military drills near Taiwan.