About All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots

All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots

The All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, abbreviated ACFTC and known in Chinese as Zhonghua Quanguo Taiwan Tongbao Lianyihui, or Quanguo Tailian for short, is a national people's organisation of the People's Republic of China composed mainly of Taiwanese who reside on the Chinese mainland, together with their descendants. Headquartered at No. 188 Chaonei Street in the Dongcheng District of Beijing, it states its purpose as connecting, serving and uniting Taiwan compatriots, promoting exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and advancing Chinese unification. It is organised through provincial and municipal Taiwan compatriots federations across the mainland, and its president since December 2022 is Zheng Jianmin.

The federation was established on 22 December 1981, at a moment when Beijing's Taiwan policy was shifting from military confrontation toward appeals for peaceful reunification. In the four decades since, it has built a documented programme of work: an annual academic seminar on cross-strait relations co-hosted since 1991, a Taiwan compatriot youth summer camp run since 2004 that has drawn more than 20,000 young participants from Taiwan, and a winter camp tradition dating to 1989. Since 2017, reporting by the South China Morning Post and analysis in Taiwan and the United States have described the federation as taking a more prominent role in united-front work directed at Taiwan, and in 2024 Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council barred Taiwan citizens from working for it, a measure the federation's supporters characterise as obstructing exchanges.

Founding in December 1981

The ACFTC was established on 22 December 1981 in Beijing. Its founding belonged to a sequence of mainland initiatives that redefined the Taiwan question in peaceful terms: on 1 January 1979 the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress had issued its Message to Compatriots in Taiwan calling for peaceful reunification, and on 30 September 1981 Ye Jianying, chairman of the Standing Committee, set out the nine-point policy elaborating on the return of Taiwan and peaceful unification. An organisation of Taiwan-origin residents living on the mainland gave that policy a civic embodiment — compatriots from Taiwan themselves, organised nationally, speaking to compatriots on the island.

The federation's constituency is distinctive among China's people's organisations. Its members are mainly Taiwanese who have settled in the People's Republic of China and their descendants — including families who moved to the mainland in the 1940s and later generations born there — organised through Taiwan compatriots federations at provincial and municipal level. Reporting on its leadership has noted that most of its senior figures are second- or third-generation mainland residents of Taiwan origin; its fourth president, Liang Guoyang, observed in 2012 that the federation had branches at provincial and municipal level across the country except Tibet, and that they received about 30,000 visiting Taiwan compatriots a year.

Presidents and national congresses

The federation's first president was Lin Liyun, who served from December 1981 to May 1991. She was followed by Zhang Kehui (May 1991 to November 1997), Yang Guoqing (November 1997 to January 2005), Liang Guoyang (January 2005 to December 2012), Wang Yifu (December 2012 to December 2017) and Huang Zhixian (December 2017 to December 2022). Zheng Jianmin, elected at the eleventh national congress in December 2022, is the seventh president. Zheng, born on 16 May 1965 in Taining, Fujian, with ancestry in Taipei, is a vice-chair of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, served as a vice-governor of Fujian from 2018 to 2023, and sits on the standing committee of the National People's Congress.

The federation's national congresses elect its council and set its direction. The eleventh national congress, held in Beijing over two days in December 2022 and attended by over 300 representatives of Taiwan compatriots federations from across the country, deliberated and approved the work report of the tenth council, adopted an amendment to the federation's constitution, and elected an eleventh council of 113 members, which in turn elected a standing council of 42 members and Zheng Jianmin as president. The congress framed the federation's tasks in terms of implementing the guiding principles of the twentieth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and breaking new ground in its work in the new era.

The fortieth anniversary in 2021

The federation's fortieth anniversary was marked by a commemorative meeting in Beijing on 26 September 2021, combined with the opening of the fifth forum of social groups of Taiwan compatriots. Wang Yang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attended and spoke, applauding the federation's role and work in connecting, serving and bringing together Taiwan compatriots — the three verbs that summarise its official self-description.

Such anniversary observances illustrate the federation's place in China's political structure. It is classified among the people's organisations — mass organisations that sit within the united-front system and are represented in consultative bodies — rather than among government ministries, and its events are attended by senior party and state leaders. The fortieth anniversary coverage by Xinhua and the CPPCC's English service repeated the federation's founding formula: established in December 1981, it consists of Taiwan compatriots residing on the Chinese mainland.

The Cross-Strait Relations Academic Seminar

Since 1991 the federation has co-hosted, with the National Society of Taiwan Studies and the Institute of Taiwan Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an annual Cross-Strait Relations Academic Seminar, a series known in Chinese reporting as one of the "Three Taiwan Forums". The seminar brings mainland scholars and officials together with invited participants to discuss the state of cross-strait relations, and its continuity over more than three decades makes it one of the longest-running fixtures of mainland Taiwan-affairs scholarship.

The seminar is the academic arm of the federation's work, complementing its service and exchange functions. Through it, the federation participates in the production of mainland analysis on Taiwan — the framing of unification policy, the assessment of island politics and the discussion of economic and cultural integration — and gives Taiwan-origin scholars and community figures a platform within that discussion. Its co-hosts, a national learned society and a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences institute, place the event at the centre of the mainland's Taiwan-studies establishment.

Youth summer and winter camps

The federation's most visible exchange programme is the Taiwan Compatriot Youth Summer Camp, run annually since 2004 under a name often rendered as the Taiwan Compatriot Thousand Youth Summer Camp, because its cohorts are measured in the thousands. The twenty-first camp opened in Fuzhou, Fujian, on 3 July in its 2024 edition — reported at the time as the camp's twentieth holding — drawing around 1,500 participants from Taiwan, including university students and overseas Taiwan youth. Organisers state that over twenty editions the camps have facilitated exchanges for more than 20,000 young people from Taiwan, making the programme a flagship project for youth exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

A companion winter camp tradition is older. The thirtieth Taiwan Compatriot Youth Winter Camp opened at Jilin University in Changchun on 23 January 2024; organisers describe the winter camp as a cross-strait youth exchange brand project that had been held twenty-nine times since 1989, with more than 7,000 young Taiwan compatriots participating. Its 2025 edition attracted about 1,000 young people, mostly university students, across seventeen provincial-level regions, with itineraries combining historical and cultural sites, ice and snow sports, New Year customs and tours presenting modern China's development. President Zheng Jianmin has personally opened recent camps, presenting them as evidence of kinship between compatriots on both sides of the Strait.

Service and exchange work

Beyond its flagship events, the federation's stated work is the everyday business of connection and service: receiving visiting Taiwan compatriots — about 30,000 a year through its provincial and municipal branches, on its former president's account — helping Taiwan residents who live, study, work or invest on the mainland, and organising delegations in both directions. Liang Guoyang reported that the federation sent ten groups to Taiwan in 2010 and seven in 2011, and that its branches organised trips to places where many Taiwan compatriots lived; in 2009, after Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan, he was able to travel to the island with donations from the mainland.

The federation also supplies a significant share of the "Taiwan province" representation in mainland political life. Reporting on the eighteenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012 noted that nine of the ten delegates representing Taiwan came from the federation, most of them second- or third-generation mainland residents of Taiwan origin, and the federation is officially described as a non-governmental organisation while being funded by the Chinese government. Its community forums, including the forum of social groups of Taiwan compatriots whose fifth edition accompanied the fortieth anniversary in 2021, gather Taiwan-origin associations from across the mainland.

Role since 2017 and external responses

From 2017 the federation took on a more prominent role in the Communist Party's united-front efforts directed at Taiwan, according to the South China Morning Post, which reported that the civilian group from mainland China would play a larger part in cross-strait affairs. United-front analysis published since then has treated the federation as a principal instrument for cultivating ties with Taiwan society, particularly youth, through its camps and exchanges. During the run-up to the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election, the American Enterprise Institute's China–Taiwan monitoring reported that the federation coordinated editorial attacks against Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Ching-te, framing him as "pro-war"; the federation's own public statements present its election-period commentary as opposition to Taiwan independence.

Taiwan's authorities have responded with restrictions. In 2024 the Mainland Affairs Council in Taipei banned Taiwan citizens from working at the federation, citing national security concerns, and expanded the list of mainland postings barred to Taiwan residents; Focus Taiwan and the Taipei Times reported the measures in January and May 2024. These steps, and the federation's criticism of them as damaging to exchanges, form the current contested context of its work: Beijing presents the ACFTC as a bridge of kinship between compatriots, while Taipei treats it as an arm of united-front work to be kept at a distance.

Place among China's people's organisations

The ACFTC belongs to the small group of national people's organisations through which specific constituencies are represented in China's consultative politics, listed alongside the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the All-China Women's Federation, the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. Its party secretary in recent listings is Ji Bin, and its official site is hosted at tailian.taiwan.cn. What distinguishes it within that company is the direction of its work: its constituency lives on the mainland, but its mission is aimed across the Strait, at a population governed from Taipei that Beijing claims as compatriots.

For a directory of Chinese national organisations, the federation is a significant if lesser-documented entry. Its verified record — founding on 22 December 1981, seven presidents from Lin Liyun to Zheng Jianmin, a 113-member eleventh council elected in 2022, an annual academic seminar running since 1991, summer camps since 2004 reaching more than 20,000 Taiwan young people, and a fortieth anniversary addressed by the CPPCC chairman in 2021 — documents an organisation whose importance lies less in its size than in its position at the intersection of community service, scholarship and cross-strait politics.