Mainland China targets Taiwanese influencers for punishment over ‘fake and negative’ comments
- Beijing says five media and political figures from Taiwan will be subject to punitive measures, accusing them of provoking cross-strait hostility
- It does not reveal measures it plans to impose, but similar cases have included travel bans for mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau
Beijing has named a handful of Taiwanese influencers to a list of people it plans to target with punitive measures, accusing them of “fabricating fake and negative information” about mainland China’s development and provoking cross-strait tensions.
On Wednesday, Chen Binhua, a spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, listed five people, saying that a small number of Taiwanese commentators had “disregarded the facts of the mainland’s development and progress, deliberately fabricating false and negative information about the mainland”, and disseminated these views widely through media platforms.
“Any acts of fabricating, spreading rumours, disrupting social order or damaging national honour and interests will face legal consequences.”
Chen did not give examples of what the rumours were. But he was responding to a question from a state media reporter who cited comments by the influencers that portrayed mainland China as economically backward.