United Front Groups: The Cognitive Game of 'Moistening Things Silently,' From Low-Cost Tourism to Influencer Traffic

30-Second Overview:
Former CCP United Front Work Department Minister You Quan once summarized the new era's strategy towards Taiwan as "moistening things silently"—narrowing the psychological distance between the peoples of the two sides, rather than engaging in direct confrontation. From taking local neighborhood committee heads to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag-raising in the 1990s, to million-follower creators live-streaming from the September 18 Historical Museum in Shenyang in 2025, the packaging of United Front Groups has changed, but the core logic remains the same: to make the feeling that "China is not that scary" linger for one more second in Taiwanese society. This article deconstructs its institutions, incentives, and indirect effects.

On June 12, 2024, Taiwanese YouTube creator Porter King threw a message bomb on social media: according to information he received, the CCP's Cross-Strait Youth Association planned to invite 10 groups of Taiwanese influencers to China to shoot videos, with flights and accommodation fully covered, under the guise of the "Cross-Strait Youth Culture Month" ¹. At that time, the China trips of Zhong Mingxuan and馆长 Chen Zhihan had not yet occurred—but Porter King wrote a sentence: "Consider this article a prophecy."

One year later, this prophecy came true. The scale, however, was larger than anyone had imagined.

Origins: Tiananmen Flag-Raising and the Logic of "First-Time Visitors"

United Front work is not an invention of the digital age. Since the 1990s, a special tourism model has existed in Taiwanese society: participants only need to cover airfare, while all other food, accommodation, and transportation are "ground-received" by the Chinese side. The target audiences for such activities are often local neighborhood committee heads, retired military personnel, or student clubs. Itineraries often include "red attractions" such as Tiananmen Square and the CCP Party History Museum, accompanied by symposiums and official speeches ².

Taiwanese media personality Chen Tzu-chien (Retina) has publicly discussed his personal experience participating in a cross-strait exchange camp during university: every night at 7 PM, they collectively watched Xinwen Lianbo (News Simulcast). A single news item about Xi Jinping could last fifteen minutes, making Taiwanese students feel "the more they watched, the funnier it became"—this memory of dark humor later became the starting point for his founding of Eyeball Central Television ³.

The turning point occurred at the strategic level. Former CCP United Front Work Department Minister You Quan proposed the direction of "moistening things silently," emphasizing narrowing the lifestyle and psychological distance between the peoples of the two sides, rather than directly conveying political propositions ⁴. In 2023, the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office (TAIO) designated it as the "Year of Large-Scale Exchange with Taiwan," causing the number of United Front Groups to explode. The target audience shifted to Taiwanese youth who had never set foot on Chinese soil—officially referred to as "First-Time Visitors," with the goal of turning them further into "Frequent Visitors" ².

Analysis from the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) points out that such low tour fees are often more than half below market rates, and ground reception is a common practice ². The Taiwanese proverb "There is no such thing as a free lunch" finds its most concrete interpretation in this scenario.

Institutional Network: Three-Layer Architecture, Who Pays?

The CCP's United Front work has a rigorous organizational hierarchy, forming a transmission mechanism from the central level to local levels to nodes in Taiwan:

Decision-Making Layer: The Central United Front Work Department sets strategic directions and narrative themes;
Execution Layer: Various provincial and municipal Taiwan Affairs Offices, the Cross-Strait Youth Association, the Chinese Overseas Friendship Association, and other institutions are responsible for resource allocation and specific reception;
Nodes in Taiwan: The United Front Party, hometown associations, clan associations, specific temples, and student groups use names such as "youth exchange," "religious pilgrimage," and "hometown fellowship" as recruitment channels, blurring political purposes ⁵.

The operation of this architecture sometimes touches upon legal violations. Zhang Cunfeng, Branch President of the Pingtung United Front Party, and Huang Rongde, General Secretary, were entrusted by officials from the CCP's TAIO in 2023 to recruit citizens to travel to Hainan Province and Shanxi Province with ground reception, violating the Anti-Infiltration Act and the Election and Recall Act; in 2025, the High Court of Kaohsiung still sentenced each to four years and six months imprisonment in the second instance, finalizing the case ⁶.

The Turning Point: Influencers' Cameras, Ten Times the Benefit of Neighborhood Committee Groups

Between 2024 and 2025, United Front operations completed their most important evolution: from "taking people over" to "letting creators bring the footage back."

After Porter King's exposure,馆长 Chen Zhihan's China trip became the biggest ignition point for this wave of heating up. In 2025, he visited Shanghai, Hangzhou, Macau, and Shenzhen multiple times, emphasizing his status as "self-funded," "civilian exchange," and "peace ambassador," live-streaming throughout on social media, accumulating tens of millions of views. In October of the same year, he went to Beijing, Dandong, and Shenyang. On October 31, he visited the September 18 Historical Museum, and on November 1, watched the flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square ⁷.

The "local guides" accompanying him had their backgrounds exposed in The Reporter's investigation. Wang Xiao has over 2.51 million followers on Bilibili and served as a senior editor for Observer Network before 2021; Yang Shengzhi was still the chief reporter for the English version of Global Times until 2025, covering Chinese politics and diplomacy; Li Xiang holds the identity of "Executive Director of the Beijing Chaoyang District New Social Stratum Federation" and is also the Deputy Secretary-General of the Beijing Internet Famous Person Friendship Association—an organization promoted by the Beijing Municipal United Front Work Department ⁷.

They appear in the creators' lenses in the guise of "friends," assisting with itinerary arrangements and content planning.

📝 Curator's Note:
The accompanying figures appearing under the name of "friends" often have backgrounds at the intersection of state media, United Front organizations, and content platforms. Creators might truly believe this is just "industry cooperation"—and this is precisely the most accurate operation of "moistening things silently": letting the spreaders of influence themselves believe it happens voluntarily.

The Reporter's in-depth investigation further reveals that the connection between the "Taipei Influencer Festival" and Continental Search forms a hidden propaganda chain, translating Chinese city images into daily consumer content through commercial packaging ⁴.

Incentive Structure: Taiwan Advertising Market vs. Chinese End Rewards

Beneath the "de-politicized" shell lies a clear economic logic. The average price per sponsored post for Taiwanese creators is usually far lower than the "high-value commissions" the Chinese end can provide—from full-process high-standard reception (business class, high-end hotels), daily consulting fees, to cooperation fees for specific content, and even traffic profit-sharing on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, forming a complete matrix of incentives ⁸.

For creators pursuing traffic monetization, a "China trip" simultaneously represents可观 income and market expansion opportunities. This blurs the boundary between "being bought" and "autonomous commercial behavior"—and this blurring itself is one of the conditions for the effective operation of this mechanism.

Indirect Effects: Making Taiwan Disarray Itself

The CCP's United Front strategy has a deeper goal: to exhaust Taiwanese society's energy in internal disputes—"falling in love with China" is only the surface. The true strategic benefit lies in "dividing without fighting" ⁹.

After馆长's China trip, fierce debates erupted on social media: his past anti-China remarks were dug out one by one for comparison, fan camps split, political party attacks followed, and media followed up to amplify. Taiwanese people consumed massive attention on the question of "whether馆长 was bought"—rather than jointly dealing with the institutional infiltration mechanism.

This internal consumption is the indirect effect of "dividing without fighting" ⁹.

On April 19, 2025, the "Reject United Front, Protect Taiwan" rally broke out on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. The organizers announced that over 55,000 people were present at the scene, demanding opposition to CCP infiltration and support for democratic freedom. Ba Jiong was one of the main organizers. A recall booth appeared on site, reflecting the accumulated social dissatisfaction with the continuous accumulation of influencer China trips and low-cost exchanges ¹⁰.

📝 Curator's Note:
The emergence of anti-United Front rallies indicates that the alert mechanism of Taiwanese civil society is indeed operating—but the same rally also became material for another wave of debates on social media: "Is this a DPP mobilization or a spontaneous rally?" Even "anti-United Front" itself can become a lever point for social tearing.

Digital Upgrade: Precision Targeting in 2026

As of 2026, the National Security Bureau's "2025 CCP Cognitive Warfare Analysis Report" reveals five major methods of operation towards Taiwan: utilizing data analysis to monitor social sentiments, establishing diverse channels to distribute controversial messages, utilizing abnormal accounts to infiltrate public opinion, using AI-generated realistic audio-video, and conducting cyberattacks to steal citizens' accounts; throughout the year, over 45,000 groups of abnormal accounts and 2.31 million controversial messages were seized ¹¹.

The application of AI-synthesized audio-video has reached a new level: the Chinese side commissioned specific companies to develop intelligent voice systems, inducing citizens on Taiwanese websites to record audio for synthesizing fake voice lines; simultaneously, through "same-city tags" and "recommendation feed" algorithms, allowing young Taiwanese users to repeatedly encounter the narrative "China is safe and developed" in contexts of "travel guides," "food and entertainment" ¹¹.

Current Situation: Where the Defense Lines Grow

Facing increasingly difficult-to-identify cognitive operations, Taiwan's response is evolving synchronously.

Poll data shows complex social attitudes: in surveys between 2024 and 2025, 56.3% of respondents supported amending laws to regulate the behavior of influencers cooperating with United Front activities, but only 37.9% of the 20-24 age group supported such legislation—the younger generation's trade-off between "exchange freedom" and "national security" remains on an open spectrum ¹².

"Media literacy courses" have entered some high schools and universities, using "identifying AI-generated travel videos" and "template cities vs. comprehensive reality" as teaching materials. In the Taiwanese creator community, spontaneous "counter-narratives" have also emerged: producing "same city, two lenses" comparison videos, using the same content format to counter specific narratives ¹³.

The effectiveness of the CCP's United Front work has no single answer in the public opinion fields of both sides of the strait.馆长's "crazy praise" video is sometimes criticized by Chinese netizens as "acting too much" or "useless"—propaganda does not necessarily reach the expected destination; it just keeps uncertainty alive ⁷.

And uncertainty may well be the ultimate product of this cognitive game.

Further Reading

• Cognitive Warfare — The systematic framework of cognitive operations and Taiwan's corresponding mechanisms, from academic analysis to concrete practices in civic education.
• Falun Gong in Taiwan — From the Yangming Mountain Flower Clock to Taipei 101, the same mirror image of cross-strait comparison, how religious freedom becomes a touchstone for Taiwan's democratic values.
• Porter King — The first Taiwanese creator to expose the details of influencer United Front invitations on public platforms, the beginning and end of the exposure event.
• Ba Jiong — From the organizer of the United Front documentary to the Ketagalan Boulevard rally, Taiwan's civil society's attempts to counter cognitive warfare.
• Poison Potato Cognitive Warfare — A false message about Taiwanese potatoes in 2022, how it became a typical case for observing cross-strait information warfare.

References