Taiwan China Journalism Society and ACJA Co-Host 30th Cross-Strait University Students Journalism Camp

The Taiwan China Journalism Society (台灣中國新聞學會) and the All-China Journalists Association (中華全國新聞工作者協會), or ACJA, co-organized the 30th Cross-Strait University Students Journalism Camp, held August 19-29, 2024, across Inner Mongolia and Beijing. Approximately 200 students from 18 universities on both sides of the strait participated, the largest cohort since the camp began in 2004. An official Chinese Communist Party-led press group that plays a key part in controls on journalism and media, the ACJA arranged visits to the official media conglomerate China Media Group (中央廣播電視總台), or CMG, which is directly under the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department; iFLYTEK (科大訊飛), the artificial intelligence firm that has been alleged to have aided surveillance operations in Xinjiang; and Peking University. The group also visited the Forbidden City, which was opened specially on a closed day at the ACJA’s arrangement. Lectures at the China National Archives of Publications and Culture were delivered by a researcher from China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency and professors from Beijing Foreign Studies University and Tsinghua University, focused on international communication strategy and what speakers described as “telling China’s story well” (講好中國故事) — a formulation that in CCP discourse refers both to tightening domestic media control and extending Chinese state influence over China’s narrative overseas. On August 26, the Taiwan Affairs Office (國務院台灣事務辦公室), or TAO — the State Council body responsible for implementing CCP policy toward Taiwan, including through what the Taiwan government and independent scholars have described as organized influence operations targeting civil society, media, and youth — hosted the camp students for a mock press conference in which a TAO spokesperson fielded questions framed around cross-strait relations. The camp’s closing ceremony featured a speech by ACJA chair Liu Siyang (劉思揚), who framed the camp as a vehicle for “national rejuvenation” (民族復興) and urged students to “promote cross-strait integration.”