There, under tight security, she recorded broadcasts designed to be blasted on giant speakers towards China.įENG: She demonstrates how she used to record.
But in her first job in her 20s, she lived on a military base on Matsu, another Taiwanese island just miles off China's coast. She just retired from a long career as a radio journalist. My family asked what I would do going to such a dangerous place, but I thought, how great is that?įENG: This is Zhen Meihui. ZHEN MEIHUI: (Through interpreter) I was so happy I had an opportunity to be sent to Taiwan's outlying islands. This was information warfare 1970s style, each side trying to get the other on their side ideologically and possibly to even get their citizens to defect. I'm standing in front of a three-story tall set of concrete speakers, and it's just blasting Deng Lijun songs in the direction of the Chinese mainland.įENG: Not to be outdone, on the other side of the street, China set up its own speakers.įENG: Until 1991, the speakers blasted patriotic propaganda to any Taiwanese living within earshot. NPR's Emily Feng brings us this story about the women and the music behind that effort.ĮMILY FENG, BYLINE: To this day, you can hear the soft, crooning ballads of Taiwanese pop star Deng Lijun or Teresa Teng everywhere in both China and Taiwan, including here from a set of massive outdoor speakers on the remote Taiwanese island of Kinmen, just a few miles from China's coast. But decades ago, Taiwan once used its own form of information warfare to sway Chinese citizens to defect to Taiwan.
It continues to pressure residents of the democratic island through online misinformation and propaganda. China has long vowed to take control of Taiwan.
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