Affinity and curiosity

"If you haven't visited a place, then you have no right to criticize it," said Chung, the 26-year-old travel YouTuber. Since first visiting the mainland in 2024, he has traveled to destinations including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

During his latest trip to Xinjiang in February, Chung drove alone for more than 1,600 kilometers across the region, visiting Sayram Lake and sharing a meal with a local family. In the video, he described Xinjiang's scenery as very beautiful and said the people there were "warm and kind". The video has attracted more than 1.4 million views on YouTube.

Chung also praised the mainland's convenience and well-developed infrastructure in his travel videos, a contrast that drew attention given his previously perceived pro-DPP stance. A video interview he conducted with Tsai Ing-wen, the former Taiwan leader from the DPP, remains featured on the front page of his channel.

Another Taiwan YouTuber, known online as "Boboyu", used his trip to Hangzhou to explain why more people in Taiwan are becoming interested in traveling to the mainland, citing affordable taxis and accommodation, as well as the convenience of a shared language across the two sides.

He said that while the shared language makes the trip much easier, the use of simplified characters, different payment methods and distinct accents still provide the sense of novelty that Taiwan travelers look for.

Notably, compared with travel videos filmed in other destinations, content about the mainland tends to attract far greater attention. Chen's livestreams during his mainland tour set multiple YouTube records in the Taiwan region, including the platform's highest livestream viewership, with total views reaching as high as 20 million.

Cai Zhuofeng, general manager of the Haixi multichannel network base in Xiamen and a veteran livestreaming industry practitioner, said people in Taiwan are eager to learn what the mainland is really like, while audiences on the mainland are interested in seeing how Taiwan visitors experience life there. "This has made content created by Taiwan visitors receive significantly more attention," Cai said.

More mainland-related content has been emerging across Taiwan's social media landscape, following a growing trend of influencers such as Chung and Chen visiting the mainland. Fan has expressed the hope of traveling to Yunnan province in the future.

As accessible online content has offered a more direct view of life on the mainland, the DPP authorities have not only tightened restrictions on cross-Strait personnel exchanges, but also moved to curb the social media app RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, which features genuine content related to the mainland.

In December last year, Taiwan's "interior affairs department" announced a one-year ban on the app. The mainland-based lifestyle-sharing platform has more than 3 million users in Taiwan, around 70 percent of whom were born after 1990.

Jhuang Yi-chang, founder of an online gaming startup in Taiwan, who took part in a digital media training camp held in Wuhan, Hubei province, in March, said: "Because so many positive stories and experiences continue to circulate on Xiaohongshu, people in Taiwan who come across them begin to realize that the mainland may not be as it is portrayed by the DPP authorities. As a result, more of them become interested in visiting the mainland to see it for themselves."

Gradually, Jhuang said, people in Taiwan, regardless of their political stance, are becoming more inclined to see the mainland's realities for themselves.

Despite restrictions and warnings issued by the DPP authorities, 306,900 Taiwan residents made their first trips to the mainland last year, up 34.6 percent year-on-year.

According to the National Immigration Administration, in the first quarter, applications for mainland travel permits by Taiwan residents increased 11.8 percent year-on-year, while the number of Taiwan residents entering the mainland rose 27.6 percent.

The mainland has introduced measures aimed at facilitating cross-Strait exchanges. From July 1, 2025, to Dec 31, 2027, Taiwan residents applying for mainland travel permits for the first time will be exempt from application fees. Since 2024, first-time permit holders from Taiwan have also been eligible for free or discounted admission to scenic areas and tourist attractions on the mainland within one year of entry.

Among the 10 policy measures introduced by the mainland in April are steps to promote the full resumption of cross-Strait passenger flights to further facilitate personnel exchanges. The mainland has also called on Taiwan to restore direct cross-Strait passenger flights.

At a news conference in March, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, welcomed Taiwan compatriots, including influencers and media practitioners, to come to the mainland, saying that the mainland will continue to create favorable conditions for their travel and exchanges.

Shi Xuefan contributed to this story.

lishangyi@chinadaily.com.cn