A Chinese social media star who kicked up a furor over the lack of a Chinese national flag on display at a Taiwan-invested hotel in Paris worked with a patriotic organization backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, he revealed on social media, highlighting ongoing efforts by Beijing's overseas propaganda operations.
Travel blogger "Instructor Zhang," who has millions of followers on Douyin and TikTok, went viral after confronting a manager at the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris after it didn't include the Chinese flag in its Olympics-themed decor.
The video prompted fury and a call for a global boycott of the hotel chain on Chinese social media, and the hotel, which is owned by Taiwan's Evergreen Group, apologized in an Aug. 15 statement to customers, vowing to "prevent any recurrence" of such incidents.
Then "Instructor Zhang" revealed that his Aug. 13 viral video, which garnered millions of views, had been approved by a France-based branch of a Chinese-backed organization called the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification.
The council is an umbrella organization founded in 1988 by the Chinese Communist Party's outreach and influence arm, the United Front Work Department, which lobbies in support of China's territorial claim on democratic Taiwan.
The U.S. State Department listed it as a "foreign mission" in 2020, after a review of its activities on American soil.
"This short film was approved after being reviewed by the French branch of the Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification," the content creator said in an Aug. 15 post to his Weibo account, attaching a photo of the approval letter.
"Between Aug. 11 and 15, 2024, ‘Instructor Zhang's Interesting Life’ made a video about the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris, France," said the letter, which was stamped with the official seal of the Council.
"The content and pictures are true, comply with relevant regulations for external release, safeguard national peaceful reunification, and can be released to the public following review," the Aug. 15 letter said.
Seeking unification
Taiwan is currently ruled as the 1911 Republic of China, a sovereign state formed after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and whose Kuomintang government fled to the island after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists in 1949.
The majority of its 23 million people have no wish to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.
While Beijing has never ruled out a military invasion to enforce its territorial claim on Taiwan, it has more recently vowed to achieve "peaceful unification" with the island through propaganda and other forms of pressure.
U.S.-based democracy activist Jie Lijiang said "Instructor Zhang" would likely see a huge benefit to his future business as a content creator by working with the Council in France.
"He runs his own channel, which can cater to the Chinese government's policy of telling good stories about China," Jie said. "[He can also] brainwash some people in China, then ask the United Front Work Department for funding."
Meanwhile, China's massive online travel agency Ctrip has removed the hotel from its listings, although some Taiwanese said that would make them more likely to stay there.
Liang Wen-chieh, deputy chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which manages the relationship with China, hit out at the move.
"Using nationalism to interfere with a business, and to get more traffic, isn't the kind of behavior that will make China great, we feel," Liang said. "It will only make the international community more disgusted."
Chen Fang-yu, a professor of political science at Taiwan's Soochow University, said it is very common for China's overseas propaganda machine to target businesses as a way to push its message globally.
"Chinese capital uses its commercial clout to demand political statements, and threatens you with delisting if you don't comply with China's wishes," Chen said. "We will be seeing more and more cases in future where [businesses] are forced to apologize to China, or be punished by being delisted."
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.