Tourist fights ‘one China’ corner with YouTube interviewer in fiery debate on streets of Taiwan
- Encounter was filmed in July but reached mainland audience on Tuesday
- Tourist reveals his exasperation with Taiwan’s ‘selective reporting’
A tourist from eastern China became an online celebrity on Tuesday after video of his fiery street debate over cross-strait relations with a YouTube broadcaster in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung was watched millions of times by mainland viewers.
The eight-minute interview with the visitor from Shandong province, surnamed Yang, was one of several conducted and published in July by political YouTube channel 2kidstw and looked at “cross-strait relations with Chinese people”.
The interviewer randomly selected tourists and asked for their opinions about the issues and candidates in the 2020 Taiwanese presidential election.
“I would support the island to return to mainland China as soon as possible,” said Yang, who then asked: “They [people in Taiwan] do not want to come back to mainland China?”
“Most of them do not want to,” the interviewer said.
Yang insisted that “Taiwan is a part of China”, and then began arguing about Taiwanese history after the interviewer said that Taiwan belonged to Japan.
“Taiwan maybe used to be a part of China, but now is not,” the interviewer said.
“It now is [part of China], forever it will be,” Yang said.
The visitor also claimed that Taiwan’s economy had lagged far behind the mainland’s for many years, and that taxi drivers had told him the island was poor.
“What are you working hard for when your economic development is that bad?” Yang said, raising his voice. “Can you see how bad your economy is in these [past] 20 years? Go to the mainland and have a look!”
The debate wrapped up with Yang again asking the interviewer why Taiwanese people refused to return to the mainland Chinese fold and what their concerns were.
“Freedom is part of the reason, [if we return] we cannot access YouTube or Facebook,” the interviewer said. “We felt very antipathetic after seeing what happened in Hong Kong recently. There are too many uncertainties of returning to China.”
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The interview was uploaded to Weibo on Tuesday and became a talking point with mainland media, resulting in more than 300 million hits.
Speaking to Shanghai-based Guancha Syndicate – one of the online media outlets to publish the interview on Weibo – Yang said that he was angry about Taiwanese financial expert Huang Shih-tsung, who this month said people on the mainland struggled to afford 2 yuan (28 US cents) packets of pickles.
He also took a shot at a Taiwanese academic who, in 2013, told a television audience that mainlanders were too cash-strapped to buy tea eggs, a popular street food.
“From that kind of coverage, you can notice the seriousness of their censorship and selective reporting of the mainland. They are just having a ‘fake democracy’,” Yang said.
Beijing considers Taiwan to be a wayward province to be returned to its fold, by force if necessary.
Earlier this month, China announced that it would boycott the “Chinese-language Oscars” – the Taiwanese Golden Horse film awards, while in July Beijing banned solo travellers from visiting Taiwan.
