A Chinese influencer living in Taiwan must leave the island within days or be deported, Taiwanese authorities said, after she posted videos supporting the idea of China taking the island by force.
The rare move comes at a time of heightened cross-strait tensions and increasing suspicions of Chinese influence operations on the democratic island.
Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency (NIA), which revoked the influencer’s visa, said that her “behaviour advocates the elimination of Taiwan’s sovereignty and is not tolerated in Taiwanese society”.
The influencer, identified by authorities with her surname Liu, had relocated from mainland China to Taiwan on a dependent visa after marrying a Taiwanese man.
Liu has until 24 March to leave Taiwan before she is forcibly deported, local media reported.
She would not be able to apply for another dependent visa for five years, according to an NIA statement on Saturday.
It is extremely rare for the authorities to expel Chinese spouses of Taiwanese citizens.
Liu, better known on social media as Yaya in Taiwan, regularly posts pro-Beijing commentary videos with her young daughter.
In the videos, Liu refers to the island as “Taiwan province” and echoes China’s state narrative that Taiwan is “an inseparable part of China”.
China claims the self-governed Taiwan as part of its territory, and has not ruled out the use of force over it. Taiwan, however, sees itself as distinct from China.
“The complete unification of the motherland is a necessity, regardless of what the Taiwanese people want,” Liu said in one video on Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, where she has 480,000 followers.
“Peaceful unification is much harder than unification by force,” she added. “It depends on what choices the Taiwanese people make.”
As criticism against her videos mounted, Liu posted on Douyin in February that she “would never back down”.
She later said that she was “trying to promote the good on both sides” through her videos and “eliminate the chasm between people”.
“I’m just analysing objectively and sharing my own views,” she said. “Those pushing for Taiwan independence … are the ones causing real harm to Taiwanese society.”
Her remarks have sparked condemnation from Taiwan’s leaders, with interior minister Liu Shyh-fang saying that freedom of speech was “not an excuse” to call for the invasion of Taiwan.
Liu is among360,000 mainland Chinese spouses living in Taiwan, whose activities have been increasingly scrutinised amid heightening cross-strait tensions.
In a slate of measures announced last week to curb Chinese influence and infiltration on the island, Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te called for tighter control of cross-strait exchanges, which he said were seen by China as a way to “create internal divisions” in Taiwan.