As a mainlander studying in Taiwan, Chen-Zi (not her real name) felt she had the best of both worlds. For much of the year, she was in Taiwan working on her Ph.D. and basking in the island’s friendly and open-minded atmosphere. During long school breaks, she would usually be back home in southern China, enjoying the familiar warmth of family and childhood friends.
Since the pandemic began last year, however, neither Taiwan nor the mainland has felt welcoming to Chen-Zi. Like many mainland students studying in the island across the Strait, she has suddenly become a stranger in both places.
For sure, the relationship between Beijing and Taipei has always been problematic, and each side has not had anything nice to say about the other for decades. Beijing, however, has been more aggressive in using salty language toward the tiny island across the Strait.
One positive outcome of Taiwan’s having mainland students, though, is that both the mainlanders and the locals are able to see for themselves how the people from the other side of the Strait really are. Or, at the very least, they usually choose to concentrate on whatever good traits they see and avoid any discussion of cross-strait politics. That is, until COVID-19 brought to the fore the effects of Beijing and Taipei’s complicated relationship on the people on both sides of the Strait.
As the pandemic continues to rage across the globe, schools like the National Taiwan University have restricted the return of mainland students to their campuses.
Just two decades ago, there were barely any mainland students in Taiwan. Considered a “renegade province” by Beijing, Taiwan at the time was under the administration of Chen Shui-Bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that until now champions the idea of the island as an independent state. Cross-straits relations were at a low point. In 2011, however, the Kuomintang (KMT) party — which adheres to a one-China philosophy — returned to power. A long-dormant plan to allow mainland students in Taiwan was revived. Not long after, students headed for universities and graduate schools in Taiwan began crossing the Strait. At one point, the number of mainland students enrolled in degree courses in Taiwanese universities (excluding the short-term exchange students) even reached 10,000.
Chen-Zi herself started her Taiwanese academic journey some five years ago. She first enrolled in a master’s program and realized she liked Taiwan so much that she decided to go for a doctorate on the island afterward. Off-campus, she says, the Taiwanese she met were just as patient and friendly and remained so even after learning she was from the mainland.
Chen-Zi would share her positive impressions of Taiwan and its people with her family back in the mainland. She says that they had been pleased at first to hear her stories, which painted a different picture of Taiwan from that portrayed in China’s mainstream media. But in the last two years, Chen-Zi says, she has felt increasing hostility toward Taiwan from her family.
Then came the pandemic. When China early last year began locking down cities to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Chen-Zi was in the mainland. What was supposed to be a brief vacation for the Chinese New Year holidays stretched into six months as Taiwan kept pushing back the date when it would allow mainland students to return; it finally did so in August 2020.
The central government in Beijing, meanwhile, announced in April 2020 that it would suspend sending students to Taiwan for the rest of the year because, it said, Taipei had “banned” them entry during the pandemic. Only graduating students, it added, would be allowed to remain in Taiwan. From 2,259 mainland students enrolled in degree programs in Taiwan in 2019, the number dropped to just 576 in 2020.
Politicized politics
Beijing’s knee-jerk response to Taiwan’s policy regarding mainland students during the first stage of the pandemic didn’t surprise Chen-Zi. But she thought the authorities in Taipei were not basing their policy on the mainland students’ travel history and instead were concentrating on the students being mainlanders first and foremost. On a Facebook page dedicated to mainlanders in Taiwan, she reposted articles that urged Taipei not to discriminate against mainland students and to follow science instead.
By then the page had numerous posts that were variations of “Chinese get out!” or “Chinese spread the virus!” What Chen-Zi says hurt her the most, however, was that people whom she considered her close friends were among those posting such messages and taunting her fellow mainland students.
In the 2020 national elections, the Taiwanese re-elected incumbent president Tsai Ing-wen, sending a clear message to the mainland.
KK, a PhD candidate from Beijing, meanwhile keeps using the word “trauma” to describe how she felt as Taiwanese netizens lashed out online at mainland students. She has been studying in Taiwan for about a decade now but, these days, she says that it doesn’t seem like the island she once knew. Says KK: “My world doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and I keep doubting myself, wondering if I have lost something that has made me unrecognizable even to those who know me.”
Both KK and Chen-Zi, however, aren’t keen on returning to the mainland just yet — and not only because they still have a way to go to earn their PhDs. KK says that she inevitably ends up quarreling with relatives over their “violent hostility” toward Taiwan, even if she herself thinks there are things that could stand some fixing on the island. Once an avowed Marxist, she has reveled in the freedoms enjoyed by the Taiwanese and would rue having to give these up once she returns home.
Chen-Zi, for her part, recounts that she was bored with “Go, China!” and “Go, Wuhan!” posts while she waited to return to Taiwan last year. She says that she got ridiculed on WeChat for asking people to rely on facts about the pandemic and to investigate first before they come to conclusions or decisions. She now talks less about domestic affairs whenever she is on the internet in the mainland.
“I thought we had an information difference,” Chen-Zi explains, “but I realized some people think national stability is more important than individual rights.”
A slew of rules and restrictions
If Beijing had its way, Chen-Zi wouldn’t have ended up thinking differently from those on the mainland WeChat, and KK would still be a dedicated Marxist. This is why Beijing requires Taiwanese colleges and universities seeking to recruit mainland students to go through China’s Cross-Strait Admissions Service Center. Prospective students must also attend a “talk” at a designated Taiwan Affairs Office run by the Chinese government. The “talk” usually focuses on political ideology, censorship, and education, but its main concern is to ensure that the students would not be swayed by Taiwan’s claim of independence.
Mainland students are also warned against participating in rallies and parades in Taiwan. After a DPP government was again voted into office in 2016, parents were told as well to join their children in the “talks,” so that the whole family would think as one in resisting any ideology peddled by Taiwan. (Chen-Zi believes her family became less and less accepting of her stories that highlighted Taiwan’s good points after DPP won another term in 2020 and Beijing stepped up its rhetoric some more on its “enemies” in Taiwan.)
Across the Strait, a wary public at first had resisted the idea of having many mainlanders in Taiwan’s colleges and universities. Taipei thus initially imposed strict restrictions on mainlanders interested in studying in Taiwan. For one, only those with households from eight provinces and cities — among them Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou — could apply. For another, those applying for graduate school must come from the 155 colleges and universities approved by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan. Mainlanders were also limited to the type of qualifications they could pursue in Taiwan.
“In addition,” writes Dr. William Yat Wai Lo of the University of Hong Kong, “mainland students were prohibited from gaining scholarships and professional qualifications, working and staying in Taiwan after graduation, receiving additional scores that overseas Chinese students could receive in examinations, and taking Taiwan’s civil service examinations.”
“Some of these restrictions and prohibitions were subsequently relaxed and removed,” continues Yat. “Nevertheless, mainland students are still not allowed to stay in Taiwan for employment after graduation, and medical qualifications awarded by mainland universities are still not recognized in Taiwan.”
Chen-Zi says that she understands the hostility many Taiwanese feel toward the Chinese government, especially now. But she says that she disagrees with the apparent inability of even her Taiwanese friends to make a distinction between Chinese citizens like herself and Beijing. Yet, she is also unwilling to accept the incessant criticism of Taiwan by her family and friends back in the mainland.
As for KK, she says that she is still struggling to express both her fondness for and dissatisfaction with Taiwan, even as she ponders how to describe its complexities. The one thing she is sure of these days is that she is no longer the same person who left Beijing 10 years ago. ●
Ursus Zihyou Wu is an international students’ rights activist and a youth scholar with special interests in Gender Studies and Gender Policy.
