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Activity Category: Media Engagement Activity

Want Want China Times Media Group Delegation Visits Beijing Daily Group

Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團) and Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) led a delegation to Beijing Daily Group (北京日報報業集團) on July 6, 2016, meeting with Beijing Daily Group president Fu Hua (傅華) and holding a joint working session. The two sides agreed to jointly organize the Second Cross-Strait Media Summit (第二屆兩岸媒體人北京峰會) in Beijing later that year, focusing on cross-strait youth exchange and industrial cooperation. Beijing CCP Committee Secretary and Politburo member Guo Jinlong (郭金龍) separately received the Want Want China Times delegation — including Tsai Eng-meng, former Taichung mayor and Want Want China Times Media Group vice chairman Hu Chih-chiang (胡志強), and Want Want Media Group president Tsai Shao-chung (蔡紹中) — and expressed the Beijing Municipal CCP Committee’s full support for cross-strait media cooperation, urging the two sides to develop the summit into the premier cross-strait media communication platform. At the session, Tsai Eng-meng said Want Want Group was considering establishing a cross-strait youth entrepreneurship and exchange park in Beijing. The visit was reported by Want News, a Want Want China Times subsidiary publication.

Fourth Cross-Strait Media Summit Held in Beijing

The Fourth Cross-Strait Media Summit (第四屆兩岸媒體人北京峰會) was held in Beijing on May 10, 2019, co-organized by Beijing Daily Group (北京日報報業集團) and Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團). Nearly seventy Taiwan media organizations sent representatives, led by Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團) chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明). CPPCC chairman and Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang (汪洋) received the Taiwan delegation in a closed-door session, directing those present that achieving peaceful unification and one country two systems required the efforts of media colleagues, and mocking Taiwan’s government as unable to guarantee its situation two years hence. Wang Yang further stated that Taiwan independence advocates were mistaken to rely on the United States, which would not go to war with China over Taiwan. The remarks were recorded and leaked the following day, triggering a public controversy in Taiwan. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) convened a national security meeting the same morning the summit took place; the Foreign Ministry and National Security Bureau both issued statements condemning the CCP’s interference in Taiwan’s press freedom. Xinhua News Agency’s dispatch on Wang Yang’s remarks omitted the statements about Taiwan’s government and the United States entirely. The incident was reported by The News Lens and [Up Media](https://www.upmedia.mg/newsinfo.php?Type=24&SerialNo=63014)_.

First Cross-Strait Media Summit Held in Beijing

The First Cross-Strait Media Summit (第一屆兩岸媒體人北京峰會) was held in Beijing in late 2015, co-organized by Beijing Daily Group (北京日報報業集團) and Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團). The summit was the inaugural event in an annual series established under the strategic cooperation agreement the two groups signed in late 2014, providing a recurring institutional framework for bringing Taiwan media executives to Beijing for meetings with senior CCP officials and state media counterparts. The summit series ran annually from 2015, with the exception of 2018, through at least 2019. Want Want China Times Media Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) led the Taiwan delegation.

Want Want Group Chairman Meets Taiwan Affairs Office Director Following China Times Acquisition

Following his acquisition of the China Times Group (中國時報集團) in November 2008, Want Want Group (旺旺集團) chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) met with Taiwan Affairs Office (國台辦) director Wang Yi (王毅) in Beijing. According to an account subsequently published in Want Want’s internal company newsletter Want Want Monthly (旺旺月刊) and later reported by CommonWealth Magazine (天下雜誌), Tsai told Wang Yi that the acquisition was intended to promote cross-strait relations and that his outlets would follow instructions to report positively on the mainland. Wang Yi expressed the Taiwan Affairs Office’s full support for the China Times Group. The exchange was later cited by scholar He Qinglian (何清漣) in her book Red Infiltration (紅色滲透) as emblematic of CCP-aligned Taiwan media ownership.

Third Cross-Strait Media Summit Held in Beijing

The Third Cross-Strait Media Summit (第三屆兩岸媒體人北京峰會) was held in Beijing in December 2017, themed around the thirtieth anniversary of cross-strait journalism exchange. Taiwan Affairs Office (國台辦) and Taiwan Work Office of the CCP Central Committee (中共中央台灣工作辦公室) director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) attended and addressed the gathering. Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團) and Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) and Want Want China Times Media Group vice chairman Hu Chih-chiang (胡志強) both attended. The summit was co-organized by Beijing Daily Group (北京日報報業集團) and Want Want China Times Media Group, as reported by The News Lens.

2022 Cross-Strait Chinese Character Festival Held in Taipei

The 2022 Cross-Strait Chinese Character Festival (海峽兩岸漢字節) culminating event was held in Taipei on December 14, 2022. The festival was organized on the mainland side by the Haicang District Propaganda Office of the Chinese Communist Party (中共海滄區委宣傳部), the Haicang District Federation of Literary and Art Circles (海滄區文學藝術界聯合會), and the state-run Xiamen Daily (廈門日報社), published by the CCP Committee in Xiamen, with Taiwan’s Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時傳媒集團) serving as the Taiwan co-organizer. The annual character — “thought/longing” (思) — was announced at the Taipei ceremony, selected from more than 14.7 million votes. Excellence Magazine (卓越雜誌) president Xu Banghao (徐邦浩) participated and the magazine partnered with organizers to publish a companion volume in Taiwan. The festival, established in 2008 and anchored in Haicang since 2014, has been described by organizers as a platform for advancing cross-strait “emotional convergence” (心靈契合). The phrase originates with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who introduced it in 2014 as a central concept in his unification framework, describing the goal of unification as not merely formal but requiring that compatriots on both sides achieve a deeper spiritual and emotional alignment — a formulation that People’s Daily has since elaborated as the ideological basis for using cultural exchange to build Taiwan public acceptance of unification.

Want Want China Times Media Group and Beijing Daily Group Sign Strategic Cooperation Agreement

Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) and Beijing Daily Group (北京日報報業集團) signed a strategic cooperation agreement (戰略合作協議) in late 2014. The agreement established a framework for news exchange and media industry cooperation between the two groups, and provided the organizational basis for the annual Cross-Strait Media Summit (兩岸媒體人北京峰會), a joint media platform the two groups subsequently developed together. The existence of the agreement was reported by The News Lens in 2019, citing China Times coverage of subsequent summit activity.

Want Want China Times Media Group Chairman Meets CPPCC Chairman Wang Yang in Beijing

Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團) and Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) led a delegation to Beijing in July 2018, visiting several Chinese state media organizations and meeting with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) chairman Wang Yang (汪洋), a Politburo Standing Committee member and one of the six most senior officials in the CCP hierarchy. The visit was reported by CitiOrange in an April 2019 investigation citing a Reporters Without Borders report on Chinese media expansion. Wang Yang subsequently referenced his meeting with Tsai at the Fourth Cross-Strait Media Summit in May 2019, recounting that Tsai had told him that maintaining the 1992 Consensus position was making his situation very difficult.

Taiwan’s Excellence Media Leads Delegation to Xiamen

A delegation of ten Taiwan entrepreneurs led by Xu Banghao (徐邦浩), president of Taiwan’s Excellence Global Media Corporation (卓越全球傳媒股份有限公司), visited Xiamen on August 19–20, 2024, touring cross-strait entrepreneur incubator facilities including Qida Taixiang (啟達台享) and the Haixi MCN Cross-Strait Youth Base (海西MCN兩岸青年三創基地). The base was established in November 2022 under the direction of the Huli District Taiwan-Hong Kong-Macau Affairs Office (湖里區台港澳辦) as an incubator for Taiwan youth in e-commerce and livestreaming, reported at its founding by the Party’s official People’s Daily. A July 2025 Fujian Daily article subsequently identified the base as a component of Xiamen’s state-directed cross-strait integration strategy, explicitly linking it to goals of advancing Taiwan compatriots’ “ethnic, cultural, and national identity” (民族認同、文化認同、國家認同) with the mainland. The delegation also visited the Huli District Administrative Services Center (湖里區行政服務中心), where members applied for PRC mainland resident permits (居住證). The visit was reported by the Straits Herald (海峽導報), a Fujian-based CCP-directed newspaper. According to an April 2024 report from People’s Daily Online, the MCN initiative is a state-guided project managed by the Huli District Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao Affairs Office (湖里区委台港澳办) and the Huli District Committee Organization Department (湖里区委组织部) alongside the local United Front Work Department (湖里区委统战部), whose role, according to the report, is to facilitate “national conditions” (国情) training — a reference to ideological and patriotic education — through economic and digital media incentives.