Fujian media group Chen Henan： The Straits Forum looks forward to reunification.
Chen Henan
Hello, I’m Chen Henan from Southeast Satellite TV. I am a journalist who is engaged in Taiwan-related and Taiwan-related news reports.
The Straits Forum is the largest non-governmental exchange platform between the mainland and Taiwan Province. Since the first session in 2009, more than 300,000 compatriots on both sides of the strait have participated together. In this process, my colleagues and I witnessed and recorded the feelings and blending of compatriots on both sides of the strait in the past 14 years.
On July 13th, the 14th Straits Forum was held in Xiamen. At the forum meeting that day, a representative of Taiwan compatriots’ speech caught everyone’s attention. He was Dr. Lin Shuren from Peking University who came to the mountainous area to start a business to help the poor. The story of him and his father in Daliangshan touched many people.
Mr. Lin Chunfu, Shuren’s father, chose to come to the mainland for development in the 1990s. After nearly 20 years of hard work, his enterprise has made small achievements in the industry. However, in 2011, 60-year-old Lin Chunfu put down the handicraft company with just the right momentum in Shenzhen and chose to retire. He came to Daliangshan, Sichuan, where he planted olives. At that time, the whole family thought Lin Chunfu was crazy. At the age of 60, it was too difficult for him to change the runway and start a new business. However, Lin Chunfu said, "It is normal to have difficulties in development. With the good policies of the mainland and the support of the government, it will be more emboldened to face difficulties."
In 2020, our film crew came to Hongmo Town, Mianning County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, where we interviewed the Lins’ father and son. When you first met Lin Chunfu, it was hard for you to imagine that this was a Taiwanese businessman who used to run a company with tens of thousands of employees. There are deep wrinkles in the corner of his eyes, and his skin is tanned. He is more like an agronomist we will meet in the fields.
Since 2011, the Lins’ father and son have built an olive plantation and set up an olive professional cooperative in Mianning County. When we interviewed them, the local olive plantation had grown from 600 mu at the beginning to 10,700 mu. Relying on the olive industry brought by the Lins’ father and son, more than 3,800 local farmers were lifted out of poverty and headed for a well-off society. Today, when I interviewed Lin Shuren, he told me that two years later, with the care and policy support of local governments at all levels, the olive plantation has expanded to more than 25 thousand mu, and they have increased the annual per capita net income of more than 6,800 farmers by more than three times.
The local Yi villagers thanked the Lins and their sons in a very special way. They gave the extra virgin olive oil a Yi name, Muduhani. In the Yi language, Muduhani means flame. The villagers said that the arrival of the Lins’ father and son brought us fire and hope in the Great Liangshan Mountain. This fire is the fire of getting rid of poverty, and this hope is the hope of getting rich.
During the fourteen years from 2009 to 2022, we encountered many stories of Taiwan compatriots like this in the interview process of the Straits Forum. The Straits Forum provides an unprecedented platform for cross-strait exchanges and exchanges. Taiwan Province compatriots share their experiences and tell what they see as the development of the mainland and the integration of the two sides. The launch of successive pragmatic measures, such as direct flights between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, Taiwan Province compatriots’ travel to and from the mainland exempted from endorsement, and the landing of a new platform for cross-strait youth employment and entrepreneurship, has made the Straits Forum a "fast lane" for deepening cross-strait exchanges and cooperation and promoting cross-strait integration and development.
Faced with such communication momentum, some people can’t sit still.
In 2016, Taiwan Province Democratic Progressive Party authorities came to power, and the Straits Forum became a thorn in their side. They tried their best to prevent Taiwan Province compatriots from participating in the forum, restrict relevant personnel from going to the mainland, intimidate and threaten non-governmental groups not to participate, and prohibit branch activities from being held on the island.
In 2019, at the 11th Straits Forum, Huang Zhixian, a media person from Taiwan Province, took the stage to speak as a representative of Taiwan compatriots. Her sentence "Our generation will bring Taiwan Province home" has been played by hundreds of millions on the Internet.
On the third day after the Straits Forum speech, at ten o’clock at night, Huang Zhixian sent me a message through WeChat. She said that Taiwan Province’s Mainland Affairs Council would use criminal offences against her, but she was not afraid and would fight if she wanted to. After returning to Taipei, the program hosted by Huang Zhixian was suspended and cancelled due to special factors that were not supposed to exist. She had to find a new studio, a new production team and start all over again.
After learning the news, my colleagues and I immediately invited her to have an exclusive interview, asking her to talk about her feelings for the motherland, her desire for reunification, and what she encountered after returning to Taiwan Province.
Huang Zhixian said that sooner or later, the program would be cancelled, and she knew it. However, as long as there is a one-minute program, she will tell the truth to the audience she cares about and all Chinese.
Last August, I invited Huang Zhixian again for an exclusive interview. At that time, she had just returned from Xinjiang. She talked with me about her pride when she was vaccinated with domestic COVID-19 vaccine in mainland China, and about her experience of going through the southeast and northwest of the motherland in the past year. At the end of the visit, I once again mentioned her speech at the Straits Forum two years ago and the unfair treatment she encountered afterwards. She said that as long as we make "Taiwan independence" angry, we will succeed, and if we can make "Taiwan independence" angry, we will be more successful!
In 2009, the first report on the Straits Forum in the "Straits Shinkansen" column of Southeast Satellite TV was produced by me. In 2022, the report on the Straits Forum in the "Shinkansen" column is still presented to the audience through me. In the past fourteen years, my colleagues and I have witnessed the ebb and flow between the two sides of the strait, and recorded the good marriage forged by Taiwan Province compatriots on the mainland because of the Straits Forum. They found a stage to realize their dreams here, where they felt the ardent feelings of a family of compatriots on both sides of the strait.
"Good cross-strait relations will make Taiwan Province better". Expanding non-governmental exchanges and deepening integrated development are the right path in the world. Compatriots on both sides of the strait should walk together with one heart, work together, persevere and persevere. The motherland must be unified, and it must be unified. Our generation of Taiwanese journalists will be fortunate to be the recorder of this moment.
Thank you.
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