Chinese Envoy Doubles Down on Taiwan ‘Reeducation’ Threat, Says Population ‘Intoxicated’

A high-profile Chinese ambassador has doubled down on his controversial vow that China would carry out a “reeducation” of the Taiwanese population — presumably to follow an invasion of the island democracy — echoing Beijing’s language surrounding its genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Hong Kong crackdown.

China’s ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, reaffirmed that intention in a second explosive television interview with a French broadcaster. Speaking to LCI on Friday, he lamented that there is no widespread support in Taiwan for accepting the Chinese Communist Party’s rule owing to what he called “anti-Chinese propaganda” from the Taiwanese authorities.

“Why do I say ‘reeducate’? Because the Taiwan authorities have made an education of desinicization on its population, which is effectively indoctrinated and intoxicated. It’s necessary to reeducate it to eliminate the separatist thought and secessionist theory,” he said.

He then compared such a reeducation push to France’s civics-education curriculum and said that Taiwan’s leadership was pushing for independence. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled over Taiwan, which is de facto independent.

“In each country, it is necessary to have a majority value, and it is necessary to make it with the help of education,” Lu said. He also claimed that the current Taiwanese government’s goal is to achieve independence from China, and that public opinion did not support that goal before the current administration, under Tsai Ing-wen.

Those comments aligned with what he previously told France’s BFMTV during an interview about Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last week, when he initially made the reeducation threat. What stands out in his latest appearance is the eagerness with which he appears on French television to suggest that Beijing would subject a post-invasion Taiwan to the Chinese Communist Party’s favored “majority view.” The Chinese embassy’s Twitter account posted a clip of Lu’s remarks on “reeducation.”

The LCI host also asked Lu if China would continue to deny its Uyghur “reeducation camps.”

“That question has nothing to do with our subject today,” Lu said, apparently attempting to dissociate Beijing’s brainwashing and mass-detention policy in Xinjiang from the Taiwan “reeducation” plans. He blamed “anti-Chinese forces” for spreading “fake news.”

“If there were a genocide, how could the population of Uyghurs in Xinjiang grow in 40 years from 5.5 million to 12 million?” he said. That point, however, is undercut by the fact that Beijing’s forced-sterilization campaign intensified in 2018, driving down the Uyghur birth rate significantly only in recent years — not during that four-decade period.

A number of French experts and officials slammed Lu’s comments on Twitter, with some calling for Paris to rescind his diplomatic credentials.

“In Xinjiang, the same action resulted in crimes against humanity,” wrote François Godement, a senior adviser at France’s Institut Montaigne. “Should we accept such remarks on our soil?”

Antoine Bondaz, a researcher with the Foundation for Strategic Risk whom the French embassy has previously criticized, labeling him a “little rascal,” said the French government should react, given Lu’s comparison of France’s civics education with China’s “reeducation.” He said, “Linking the two is just unacceptable.”

Throughout the rest of the interview, Lu ran through boilerplate Chinese Communist Party talking points on Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, which took place last week. Lu said that while the Pelosi visit wasn’t without precedent, it was wrong the first time a U.S. House speaker visited Taiwan, referring to then-speaker Newt Gingrich’s trip in 1997. He compared this to a man committing murder twice, and using the first murder as a justification for a second.

Lu’s repeated pledges that Beijing would seek to brainwash the Taiwanese population have not at this point been repeated publicly by other Chinese officials.