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All Lingua Sinica Dispatches

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

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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

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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

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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. 

West Pacific Press

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West Pacific Press (西太平洋通訊社), or WPP, is a Taipei-registered news agency incorporated on May 4, 2023, under Taiwan’s company registry (統編: 94104181), describing itself as “the first and only” Asia-Pacific media platform focused on West Pacific nations. WPP’s own website identifies it as a subsidiary of Excellence Media Group (卓越媒體集團). The company was founded by Wei Botao (韋伯韜), a former Republic of China government official who served as Director-General of the Executive Yuan’s budget office from June 10, 1996 to May 20, 2000, and chairman of Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation, and who has a documented history of cross-strait business engagement with Xiamen — including a 2011 meeting with Xiamen Mayor Liu Keqing (劉可清) to discuss establishing a joint venture financial company in the city’s Cross-Strait Financial Center. Wei’s published writing includes explicit advocacy for PRC geopolitical superiority, arguing that China practices a benevolent “kingly way” (王道) in world affairs. Xu Banghao (徐邦浩), president of Excellence Magazine (卓越雜誌) and head of Excellence Media Group, became WPP’s chairman and responsible person in September 2024 following an internal restructuring. Despite its ambitious self-description, WPP’s paid-in capital stands at just NT$325,000 and its registered address is shared by over 100 other companies — a common virtual office arrangement in Taiwan that raises questions about the company’s physical infrastructure, though WPP may operate from a separate location not reflected in its corporate registration. Alongside Taiwan defense and security reporting, WPP’s lifestyle section carries content sourced directly from the Fujian Southeast Network (福建東南網), a Fujian provincial state media outlet, including multiple items about Xiamen’s Huli District, alongside unedited commercial press releases accepted as editorial content. WPP signed media cooperation agreements with Korean outlets Korea Focus and Korea Daily in 2019.

Want Want Holdings

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Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團), formally Want Want Food Co., Ltd. (旺旺食品股份有限公司), is a Taiwan-founded food and beverage conglomerate whose operations are now concentrated almost entirely in mainland China, where it operates over 100 manufacturing plants and employs more than 60,000 people. Founded in 1962 in Yilan County, Taiwan as I Lan Foods Industrial Co., Ltd. (宜蘭食品工業股份有限公司), the group was taken over in 1976 by Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), who built it into China’s largest rice cracker producer. Want Want China Holdings Ltd. (中國旺旺控股有限公司) is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Tsai, who has publicly stated that “unification will happen sooner or later” and lives in Shanghai, diversified the group into media, insurance, hotels, and healthcare. In 2008 he acquired the China Times Group to form the Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團). In June 2025 Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council announced an investigation into Want Want for allegedly collaborating with the CCP to host a cross-strait summit at which the group’s general manager described Taiwan as originating in “Chinese Taiwan” and pledged the group’s loyalty to “the motherland.” The group is headquartered at 5F, 72 Xining North Road, Datong District, Taipei.

Excellence Magazine

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Excellence Magazine (卓越雜誌) is a Taiwan-based monthly business and finance publication founded in September 1984. The magazine claims a monthly circulation of 50,000 copies and targets middle-class professionals aged 28–50, with a focus on financial, technology, and corporate management readers. Its editorial scope covers business management, economics, politics, health, and environmental topics. The magazine cites multiple Golden Tripod Awards (金鼎獎) in its own promotional materials, referencing the “Government Information Office’s Golden Tripod Awards” — suggesting that if such honors were received, they date to before 2012, when the Government Information Office (新聞局) was abolished and administration of the award passed to the Ministry of Culture (文化部). The magazine does not appear in published winner lists for any year where records are available. The current corporate parent, Excellence Global Media Corporation (卓越全球傳媒股份有限公司), was incorporated in 2019; no publicly documented connection between the current entity and the magazine’s original ownership structure is established in available public records. The magazine’s content, as visible on its website, consists primarily of advertorial features on corporate clients and local government initiatives, alongside aggregated commentary on financial and geopolitical topics attributed to its editorial department, with limited evidence of serious reporting. The magazine is currently led by president Xu Banghao (徐邦浩) and has since 2019 maintained a dedicated Korea news section (臺韓快訊) and pursued media partnerships in Seoul, including a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s Applemedia Group, whose representative director Kim Hong-gi (金洪基) explicitly framed Excellence Magazine as a news integration hub for content from mainland China, Hong Kong, and the broader Chinese-speaking world directed at Korean audiences.

Xiamen Daily

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Xiamen Daily (廈門日報) is the official organ of the Xiamen Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)(中共廈門市委機關報). Founded on October 22, 1949, with its masthead calligraphy provided by Shu Tong (舒同), then a standing member and propaganda chief of the CCP East China Bureau, the paper is the sole broadsheet daily of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone. As a municipal party organ, it primarily relays local CCP committee announcements and policy directives, mirroring the People’s Daily on central political priorities. The paper suspended publication in 1970 and resumed in 1979, and has historically played a central role in cross-strait messaging given Xiamen’s position as the mainland city geographically closest to Taiwan.

China Federation of Literary and Art Circles

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The China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (中國文學藝術界聯合會, CFLAC) is a national people’s organization led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), described officially as “a bridge and link for the party and the government to connect the literary and art circles.” Founded in July 1949, the CCP Central Propaganda Department (中央宣傳部) organized networks of cultural workers’ associations headed by CFLAC. Though characterized as a non-governmental organization, CFLAC is treated in practice as a government organization under direct CCP supervision, with over two million registered members and 49 regional branches. Its remit extends to literature, film, drama, fine arts, music, photography, calligraphy, dance, and folk arts, with branches extending to the provincial, municipal, and district level across China.

Excellence Global Media Corporation

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Excellence Global Media Corporation (卓越全球傳媒股份有限公司) is a Taipei-based media company incorporated on May 27, 2019, under Taiwan’s company registry (統編: 82886718), with registered capital of NT$5 million. It is the corporate parent of Excellence Magazine (卓越雜誌), a Taiwan business and finance monthly founded in 1984. As of March 2026, the company is chaired by Zheng Yizhang (鄭玉章), who also controls a network of at least thirteen affiliated companies spanning printing, media, food and beverage, and international trade. Excellence Magazine president Xu Banghao (徐邦浩) serves as a director with equal shareholding to the chairman. The company has documented connections with CCP and Chinese government entities, including co-publishing roles in CCP-organized cross-strait cultural events and a 2024 delegation visit to Xiamen touring state-directed Taiwan youth incubator facilities, during which delegation members applied for PRC mainland resident permits. It is headquartered at 7F-1, 75 Bade Road Section 3, Songshan District, Taipei.