Roots and religion: a Fujian city’s mission to forge cultural bonds with Taiwan

City official at NPC reveals ongoing drive to promote cultural, ancestral connections and bridge ‘emotional gaps’ with Taiwanese

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Amid heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait, Fujian officials are leveraging ancestral and religious bonds to boost Taiwan ties. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:06pm, 9 Mar 2025Updated: 6:39pm, 9 Mar 2025

Authorities in the southeastern province of Fujian have promoted religious and ancestral ties with Taiwan as part of Beijing’s push to forge cross-strait cultural connections, according to a municipal party chief.

“Taiwan and Fujian are of the same root and blood,” Wang Jinzu, Communist Party secretary of the city of Zhangzhou, said on Thursday in Beijing at a panel discussion of Fujian deputies to the National People’s Congress (NPC), the top legislature.

His comments echoed similar themes floated by Beijing, which Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party has rejected.

In recent years, Zhangzhou had staged a series of cultural initiatives to promote communication and bridge “emotional gaps” across the Taiwan Strait, Wang told the panel. The drive “fully utilises the fact that we speak the same language, sing the same tunes, and share similar customs and culinary preferences”, he said.

More than 83 per cent of Taiwanese people can trace their ancestry to Fujian, fostering a “unique linkage” that underpins the relationship between the two regions, according to Wang, who added that centuries of exchanges had provided a “natural factor for integrated development”.

Wang’s account of Fujian’s efforts to strengthen cultural connections with Taiwan comes amid heightened cross-strait tensions, especially since William Lai Ching-te, the island’s independence-leaning leader, assumed office last May.