TikTok Influencers Give Xi a Rare Soft Power Win in Taiwan

Musicians from China are building ever larger fan bases in Taiwan, helping Xi Jinping expand Beijing’s soft power even as geopolitical tensions increase.

By Betty Hou Spe Chen Argin Chang

As Chinese President Xi Jinping seeks to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control, his use of fighter jets and naval ships has spooked both the island’s population and the wider world. One bright spot for him, however, has been a catchy love song.

Ren Ran, a 34-year-old Chinese singer, saw her song Birds and Cicadas shoot up Taiwan’s charts in 2020, just months after President Tsai Ing-wen won re-election in a landslide following warnings that Taiwan could be next in the wake of Xi’s crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong. The song has since remained among Taiwan’s top 100 on Spotify for a remarkable three years.

Other Chinese artists such as Zhang Yuan and Xiao A Qi also appear immune to geopolitics. In August 2022, when China responded to then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan with unprecedented military drills that simulated a blockade of the island, all three musicians had songs at the top of the charts.

Here’s a look at how Chinese artists stand out in Spotify’s rankings of Taiwan’s top songs, outperforming even international stars like Taylor Swift.

 

Taylor Swift has had plenty of hits in Taiwan, including several songs from her 2019 album Lover

But typically her songs — and those of other established artists — drop out of Spotify's top 10 soon after release and are rarely in the top 100 after a few months

In contrast, some Chinese singers have redefined how long a hit can stay on Taiwan’s Spotify charts

Their songs shoot to the top of the charts and maintain their popularity after going viral on TikTok

Ren Ran’s Birds and Cicadas shoots up the charts after TikTok influencers challenge fans to record themselves singing the song

Once Upon a Time, sung by Xiao A Qi and produced by TikTok hitmaker Yicunguangnian, debuts on the top 10

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Zhang

Zhang Yuan's Guest surges in popularity a year after it first appears in the top 100 following a collaboration with popular Taiwanese singer Faye during a singing contest in China

I Will Wait, another song produced by Yicunguangnian and sung by Cheng Huan, rockets up the charts

By Nov. 30, less than a year after its release, the TikTok shorts hashtag for I Will Wait has already accumulated more than 27 million views

Ren Ran's Birds and Cicadas has spent 168 consecutive weeks in the top 100 since Sept. 10, 2020

R anking 110 25 507 5 100 R anking 1 10 25 50 7 5 100 2 0 20 Jan 2 0 20 July 2 0 19 July 2 0 21 Jan 2 0 21 July 2 0 22 Jan 2 0 22 July 2 0 23 Jan 2 0 23 July 400k s t r eams 100k 400k s t r eams 100k c a r d i g a n S w i f t w i l l o w S w i f t A n t i - H e r o S w i f t M E ! T a y l o r S w i f t B i r d s a n d C i c a d a s R e n R a n B i r d s a n d C i c a d a s R e n R a n G u e s t Z h a n g Y u a n O n c e U p o n a T i m e X i a o A Q i I n E v e r y W o r d L u l u S h u t U p I W i l l W a i t C h e n g H u a n #1 #1 #6 #9

A big reason for their popularity is the rapid growth of TikTok, the short-video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., which has started to crack into a social-media scene dominated by rivals such as Facebook, Instagram and the messaging app Line. But because of its greater appeal to young people, TikTok has proved more effective than those platforms at amplifying the reach of Chinese content that taps into a shared culture and language. Ren Ran’s Birds and Cicadas song went viral after TikTok influencers challenged their followers to post videos of themselves singing the tune.

The success of Chinese singers in Taiwan is giving Xi an opportunity to assert Beijing’s soft power, something the Communist Party has been clumsy at in recent years. It also paints a more nuanced picture of attitudes in Taiwan than is often portrayed in the US and Europe, where fears of war are running high. Beijing’s influence in Taiwan is more in focus ahead of Jan. 13 elections, with Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party finding itself locked in a tight three-way race.

While it’s unclear the extent to which China’s cultural prowess is offsetting worries in Taiwan about a military invasion, the impact is noticeable, according to Tsai Cheng-hsiu, an associate professor at Providence University, whose research is focused on political communications and cultural exchanges between Taiwan and China. Although Lai Ching-te, the DPP’s presidential candidate, is leading most polls by single digits, two rivals who advocate friendlier ties with Beijing collectively have a greater amount of support.

“China’s soft power, including its cultural and entertainment products, has indeed impacted Taiwanese and largely reduced the mentality of ‘opposing everything China,’” Tsai Cheng-hsiu said.

TikTok in particular has become a point of divergence in the election. Lai and the DPP are officially shunning the platform in line with government policy, though some of his supporters do post videos cheering him and the ruling party on. Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, has an account with some 13,900 followers. Its candidate Hou Yu-ih — who is second in most polls — doesn’t have one of his own.

That contrasts with Ko Wen-je, a third-party candidate whose surprising popularity has shaken-up the race. The trauma-surgeon turned politician, who’s drummed up support in the past by doing dance routines and starring in a rap video, has an official TikTok account with more than 168,000 followers — many of them younger voters, a demographic that mostly supported the ruling DPP four years ago.

Lawmakers and politicians around the world have zeroed in on TikTok because of its massive popularity and stickiness, particularly among younger users. In many countries, its users spend far more time on the app than on rival platforms, in part because of an effective algorithm that serves up an endless stream of targeted videos.

Although Taiwan’s government has warned about what it describes as state-initiated disinformation and cognitive warfare spreading on TikTok, in practice it’s difficult to differentiate between what is purposefully produced propaganda and what is authentic political or cultural expression by Taiwanese citizens.

Convincing people they shouldn’t use the app is harder still. One first-time voter who finds Tiktok “very addictive” is Shiylyo Lu, a 20-year-old college sophomore in Taipei. Estimating that she spends at least two hours a day on the app, Lu isn’t convinced by warnings that Chinese content on Tiktok could have an adverse effect on Taiwan.

“I won’t hold a negative opinion toward Chinese content and people just because they come from China,” she said.

In the quarter ended in September, TikTok said it removed 767,078 videos in Taiwan for various violations of its content policies and separately also took down an influence operation pushing pro-China narratives through a network of 636 accounts. “As we approach the elections, we continue to robustly enforce our strict rules against election misinformation and influence operations,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

Representatives for Ren Ran declined a request for an interview. Yicunguangnian, which is the production company for Xiao A Qi, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Zhang Yuan couldn’t immediately be contacted.

With four weeks to go before Taiwan picks its next president, it’s hard to quantify how much Tiktok may sway the balloting, especially with a smaller percentage of older voters being avid users of the app.

The concern, though, is not unique to Taiwan. Vivek Ramaswamy, who is seeking to be the Republican Party’s nominee in next year’s presidential election in the US, has been criticized by other candidates for using TikTok. In Thailand earlier this year, former leader Thaksin Shinawatra credited a victory by a rival party to its use of TikTok to appeal to younger voters.

Whatever the impact, it’s clear that Taiwan’s political environment is markedly different from four years earlier, when President Tsai cruised to victory by framing the election as a vote on whether Taiwan wanted the same fate as Hong Kong. Now, however, the opposition appears to be gaining traction by accusing the DPP of ratcheting up the risk of war with Beijing.

China claims Taiwan as its territory and has pledged to take control of it by force if necessary, even though there are no indications it’s planning to do that anytime soon. Any war would risk bringing in the US, which has long served as the guarantor of the island’s security, and jeopardize the source of about 90% of the world’s most-advanced semiconductors.

For Xi, any party that is more positive on China would be progress, particularly as he deals with economic troubles at home. He has said his preference is to peacefully take Taiwan, and so it can only help if the island’s population is listening to Chinese music, using Chinese apps and digesting Chinese culture.

While TikTok is owned by a Chinese company and has an abundance of Chinese content, it is not actually available in mainland China. There’s a version of the app that’s specifically for China called Douyin, which is in turn not readily available in Taiwan.

Other Chinese-owned apps are also gaining popularity in Taiwan, including Bilibili, which is akin to Youtube, and Xiaohongshu, a social media platform that many call China’s version of Instagram. Unlike their American counterparts, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu specialize in Chinese-language content, giving them an advantage in winning over Taiwanese users.

“There are hundreds of millions of users in China that look like us and talk like us,” said Masa Chen, partner at the market analytics firm OOSGA, based in Taipei. “It’s a strong appeal.”

2020 2021 2022 2023 20192004006008001000Indexed MAUHighest monthly active users indexed to 1000 LINEFacebookFacebook MessengerInstagramWeChatTikTokBilibili

Growth in monthly active users

Jun, 2019 +383% Oct, 2023

Jun, 2019 +275% Oct, 2023

Jun, 2019 +123% Oct, 2023

Jun, 2019 +14% Oct, 2023 +32% Nov, 2021

Those language and cultural links also make Taiwan more susceptible than the US or Europe to being influenced by content from China. It’s why TikTok in the US fuels the popularity of American artists such as Lil Nas X and Megan Thee Stallion, and not Ren Ran.

But for all of China’s recent soft-power gains, it also has a history of squandering goodwill. Beijing regularly flexes its military muscles at times of tension, such as sending 54 warplanes into sensitive areas around Taiwan after President Tsai met then-US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April.

That can be seen in how varied Taiwanese opinions are about different aspects of China. A survey that the United Daily News in Taiwan has conducted continuously since 2010 shows that while views of China have stayed relatively neutral when it comes to people-to-people exchanges and economics, they’ve become much more negative on diplomatic and security issues over the past few years.

“China’s increased military and political oppressions of Taiwan will partially offset the scale and range of impact that its soft power brings, therefore also lower the impact it has on Taiwanese voters’ behaviors,” said Providence University’s Tsai.

Also notable is that the Chinese artists who’ve had success in Taiwan are from smaller labels that don’t appear to have explicit state backing. That matters because instead of embracing organic youth culture, China has a history of trying to limit and control such expressions. Indeed, the Cyberspace Administration of China this week announced a one-month campaign to rootout short-videos that are overly sexual, deep fakes and that spread “wrong values.”

No matter how much this cohort of singers might be helping to expand China’s soft power in Taiwan, it’s not even clear whether Xi finds them suitable at home.