Taiwan’s ‘White Wolf’ leads lonely crusade to ‘reunify’ with China

Taipei, Taiwan – For a man associated with organised crime, election interference, and Chinese influence operations, Chang An-lo is adamant that he is on a mission of peace.

Widely known as the “White Wolf”, Chang is the founder of the Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), which advocates for Taiwan’s “reunification” with China.

Chang’s position is not a popular one in Taiwan despite the island’s deep cultural and historical ties with China.

Taiwan, a democracy of some 23 million people, has been administered separately from the Chinese mainland for more than a century, first as a Japanese colony and then as the “Republic of China”, whose government fled to the island in the 1940s at the end of the Chinese Civil War.

Opinion polls suggest that most Taiwanese want to maintain the island’s status as a de facto independent state, even as the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing claims the territory as a province that must be reunited with the mainland, using force if necessary.

Chang accuses Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te of trying to bait Beijing into a conflict by pushing for Taiwanese independence.

He also hopes to persuade Taiwanese that they do not need to sacrifice themselves as cannon fodder in the event of an “armed unification” with China.

“If you don’t pursue Taiwan independence, there won’t be a war. But if you push for independence, sell Taiwan out, and provoke a conflict – we will rise up on the front lines. We refuse to be cannon fodder,” Chang told Al Jazeera in an interview at his party’s head office.