Beijing Targeted Him. Now He's Challenging Taiwan's Capital.

Friends, a rare political spectacle is erupted in Taiwan's political scene. Let me ask you, is it possible for someone who is under investigation by the Beijing Public Security Bureau, and who even has to wear a bulletproof vest under their sportswear when going out for a run, to become the mayor of Taipei? Five months ago, the answer would have been impossible. At that time, the approval rating for the incumbent Taipei mayor, Chiang Wan-an, was as high as 58%, while this person only had a pitiful 30%, and the blue camp looked down on him with disdain. However, four months later, a miracle happened. Chiang Wan-an's approval rating dropped to 41.7%, while his skyrocketed all the way to 40.5%, narrowing the gap to just 1.2 percentage points, well within the margin of error. On the 4th, his campaign headquarters was established with 120,000 people, enough to fill three Taipei domes, pouring in from all directions to support him. I am truly grateful to all the fellow citizens who have gathered here today. And do y'all remember? Look at all these people. So many of them are us. The result of the ocean current coming together, right? Everyone tells Shen Po-Yang, don't worry about having no one. His name is Shen Po-Yang. The wave of support for him is called the ocean current. Across the strait, the CCP's Taiwan Affairs Office is so anxious, they're gnashing their teeth. They've publicly named him several times, vowing to pursue him for life. Today, let's talk about this ocean current storm that's sweeping across Taiwan. Who is Shen Poyang? What did he do to make both Beijing and the KMT feel an unprecedented crisis? Shen Poyang is an associate professor at the Institute of Criminology at National Taipei University. He holds a law degree from National Taiwan University, a master of laws from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in criminology and socio-legal studies from the University of California. He's a classic academic high achiever. Later, he went on to teach at a university, and two years ago, he was nominated by the Democratic Progressive Party, DPP, as an at-large legislator, which is when he entered politics. But his friends in Taiwan know, at-large legislators are usually people you've never heard of, so Shen Poyang didn't have much name recognition before this. That was until May 13th of this year, when Lai Ching-te officially nominated him to run for mayor of Taipei. You have to realize that in a constituency like Taipei, a tough nut to crack, where the blue camp is strong and the green camp is weak, In June and July, when Shen Po-Yang hit the streets to campaign, not many people knew him yet. But by August, supporters started printing placards for him that read Yang Current. On September 2, Tsai Ing-wen accompanied him to register his candidacy, using the Yang Current metaphor to say that for a ship to move forward, it's not enough to just have someone at the helm, you also need the wind and the ocean currents. The real breakout moment happened on September 10th, because this wave of popularity kept snowballing, growing so large that even well-known media figures from the Pan Blue camp started proactively inviting Shen Po-Yang to appear on their shows. Wang Weicheng, the godfather of Taiwanese variety shows who once produced Kang Si Coming, is a typical cultural Pan Blue celebrity. He invited Shen Po-Yang onto his show to take on a challenge. As it turned out, Shen Po-Yang's impromptu performance not only earned praise from Wang Weicheng, but the interview's view count also surpassed 810,000 within 24 hours, and subsequently surged all the way to over 3.4 million. That same evening, when Shen Po-yong went canvassing at the Shipai market, the turnout was unprecedented. The entire street was so blocked by supporters that it was impossible to move. And the KMT didn't take this person seriously at all at the beginning. Chiang Wan-an commented that it was full of New Tide. The New Tide is the name of a faction within the DPP, and the implication was that this was something created by your own people in the DPP. Blue camp councillors directly claimed that the people at Shipai were all just hired hands. In the context of Taiwan's election campaigns, hired hands is similar to what is called extras in mainland China, essentially paid plants. It wasn't until September 18th, when Chen Poyang went canvassing at the Jingmei Night Market, that the place was already packed with people three hours beforehand. He walked from the intersection to the temple entrance, a short path that took him a full 20 minutes to traverse. At this point, the blue camp finally realized that the problem was serious. Some KMT councillors started warning that their numbers were genuinely high, and they couldn't afford to be careless. On September 26th, Chiang Wan-an, who had been maintaining a high and mighty stance, couldn't sit still anymore. He personally entered the fray to fire shots, claiming that Commissioner Shen was manufacturing panic and engaging in cognitive warfare. And Beijing had felt the threat even earlier than Chiang Wan-an and the KMT. As early as May, when Shen Poyang received his nomination, the CCP's Taiwan Affairs Office warned Taiwan compatriots at a press conference to draw a clear line between themselves and him. In September, when the ocean current reached its peak, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhu Fenlian once again singled him out, warning that die-hard Taiwan independence elements like Shen Po-yong are at a dead end, and like birds startled by the mere twang of a bowstring. She emphasized that those on the list would never be tolerated and would be held accountable for life. So how did this scholar, who was originally unknown in academia, managed to stir up such huge waves as soon as he entered politics? And what did he rely on to make Chiang Wan-an prepare for a serious battle and to be seen as a thorn in the side by Beijing? To answer this question, we have to start from when Shen Po-yang was young. Shen Po-yang was born in Taipei in 1982. As a child, he was the kind of kid that teachers both loved and hated. He got good grades, but boy, he talked a lot, always chatting in class and even talking back to the teachers. His father worked in import-export trade in Ecuador, South America, and was away from home for more than half the year. Before he started elementary school, his great-grandmother, who was illiterate, took Shen Po-yong to a bookstore and asked the owner to recommend a book. The owner pulled out a hardcover copy of The Little Doctor's Guide to Composition. Little Shen Po-yong knew his great-grandmother loved him, so he read the book from cover to cover and practiced writing, one essay at a time. By the time he was in the 5th or 6th grade, a teacher named Mr. Sun noticed that this little rascal wrote exceptionally good essays, so he often gave him high marks and even sent him to participate in competitions. Little Shen Po-yong's confidence soared. It was like shooting baskets. Everything he threw went in, and his grades shot all the way up to first in the class. Later, he was admitted to Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, the top public high school in Taiwan, and then went on to the law department at National Taiwan University. In 2004, he passed the bar exam and was admitted to the National Taiwan University Law Graduate Institute as the top-ranked candidate. Logically speaking, a top student like that would go on to join a big law firm and earn a high salary. But at this point, his fate took a turn. At National Taiwan University, he met Professor Lee Mao-sheng. Lee is a leading authority on criminology and juvenile law in Taiwan. He not only taught him knowledge, but also instilled in him the idea of paying attention to marginalized people in society and using sociology and criminology to analyze the system. Consequently, Shen Po-yong dove headfirst into the study of juvenile delinquency. During those years, he would go to juvenile guidance institutions every week to tutor kids who had made mistakes or were on the verge of doing so. He said he was completely shocked at the time. Those kids really aren't that far removed from us. In 2011, Shen Po-yong won the Ministry of Education's only government-funded scholarship in Taiwan, and he traveled to the University of California, Irvine to pursue a Ph.D. in criminology. In 2017, he finished his Ph.D. and North Carolina State University, which is known for having one of the safest and most beautiful campuses in the U.S., offered him a teaching position. His teachers in Taiwan urged him to stay in the U.S. at the time, and he was genuinely hesitant. But in the end, it was his American professors who made him realize, you care so much about Taiwan, why don't you go back? You won't feel a sense of accomplishment if you stay in the U.S. Shen Boyang thought about it for three whole months. He asked himself, teaching in the U.S. is prestigious, that if you take away that halo, what's left? His answer was home. So he returned and started teaching at the Graduate Institute of Criminology at National Taipei University. After he got back, Shen Boyang quickly realized that Taiwan was being surrounded by a new type of crime. What kind of new crime? Research from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden indicates that Taiwan is the place in the world most severely attacked by foreign government disinformation. Shen Boyang really wanted to know how this disinformation was being used to attack Taiwan. So in 2019, he founded the Doublethink Lab, which specializes in tracking the CCP's information warfare against Taiwan. After the 2020 Taiwan presidential election, they published a report titled Deafening Whisper, exposing the cognitive warfare from across the strait to the light of day. The grand external propaganda and the little pinks are the lowest level of infiltration. Taiwanese people can easily distinguish them, so their influence is limited. But the really effective ones are the other two types. One is called content farms. The CCP creates a bunch of websites that look just like news sites, but the content inside is cobbled together, and the headlines are more sensationalist than the last. The CCP's articles are first posted on these fake news sites, then spread layer by layer through Facebook and line groups, eventually being forwarded into the phones of Taiwanese grandparents. Or they use social media to lure people in with random nonsense or personality quizzes and then slowly feed them brainwashing content for cognitive warfare. Another method is through local collaborators, people in Taiwan who might be doing it for money or traffic, helping to repost and spread this kind of content. The source comes from across the strait, but with help from people on the island, the message then becomes something that Taiwanese people are saying themselves. At the time, this report attracted a lot of attention and was the first time some people had heard the name Shen Poyang. However, what really made him visible to all of Taiwan was the pandemic in 2021. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world, but Taiwan, relying on strict border controls, had almost no local cases for an entire year. Do you remember that at that time, Taiwan was once called the world's model student for epidemic prevention? Do you remember? If you do remember, give me a like to let me know. But by May 2021, Taiwan's defenses were breached. A cluster of infections broke out in the tea houses of Wanhua, Taipei, and the number of confirmed cases grew higher day by day. Soon, Taiwan entered a level 3 alert. But the most critical issue was that Taiwan didn't have any vaccines at the time. Originally, a contract had been negotiated with Germany's BNT, but it fell through at the last minute. President Tsai Ing-wen said it was because the CCP was interfered. It was right at this moment, when the public sentiment in Taiwan was at its most panicked, that, well, the other side made a move. The Taiwan Affairs Office declared that the mainland was willing to provide vaccines, and it was the Taiwan authorities who refused to accept them. At the same time, all sorts of narratives popped up on Taiwanese social media, claiming things like Taiwan's epidemic prevention was all just luck, that they should hurry up and buy Chinese vaccines, and that the government was covering up the outbreak, and so on. At that time, Shen Poyang's team scanned all vaccine-related posts from within a month and found that as many as 30% were blue posts trying to steer the narrative, while only 20% were praising the government. He said that Taiwan had already entered a state of quasi-war. The guns hadn't even fired yet, but the battlefield of public opinion was already ablaze with artillery fire. The CCP is creating panic and is handing the antidote that only the mainland can save you with to the Taiwanese people. The most crucial part is that he also turned this kind of research, this high-level research, into practical projects that ordinary people can access. He founded the Kuma Academy to teach ordinary citizens what to do if war breaks out, how to stop bleeding, how to transport the wounded, and also how to identify fake news. because he determined that Beijing's ultimate strategy is to subdue the enemy without fighting, making Taiwanese people believe that resistance is futile and that it's better to surrender early than to shed blood. And what Kuma Academy does is precisely to ensure that every ordinary Taiwanese person has the tools they need and peace of mind. In August 2022, when Pelosi visited Taiwan, the PLA conducted military exercises around the island. Kuma Academy's classes were instantly sold out, with over 3,000 people waiting in line to take them. UMC founder Robert Tsao went even further, announcing a pledge of 600 million new Taiwan dollars to train 3 million Kuma warriors within three years. Three million people. That's about one in every eight people in Taiwan. This made many people aware of Kuma Academy and Shen Po-Yang. And as a result, he became a total thorn in Beijing's side. From that moment on, Shen Po-Yang officially entered into a contest with Beijing. How exactly did Shen Po-Yang go up against Beijing? In October 2024, the People's Liberation Army conducted large-scale military exercises around Taiwan. On the day of the drills, the Taiwan Affairs Office announced that it was placing Shen Po-yang, Robert Tsao, and the Kuma Academy on the list of diehard Taiwan independence separatists, subject to lifelong accountability. How did Shen Po-yang respond? He publicly mocked the Taiwan Affairs Office for getting the name of the head of the Kuma Academy wrong, saying that an official agency that lacks even basic fact-checking capabilities is essentially just leading the charge and spreading rumors. In the second round, Beijing went after his family. In June 2025, Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao and Wen Weipo suddenly published consecutive articles smearing his father, accusing him of making red money by importing goods from the mainland and reselling them to Ecuador, earning hundreds of millions of RMB. A few days later, the Taiwan Affairs Office took over to sanction his father's company, and then the Kuomintang held a press conference to fiercely attack Shen Po-yang. Shen Po-yang simply replied that this was a systematic attack and that his father hadn't been to China for six years. In the third round, Beijing mobilized the police. In October 2025, the Chongqing Public Security Bureau opened an investigation into Shen Po-yang for the crime of splitting the country. The previous sanctions from the Taiwan Affairs Office were administrative measures, at most just banning entry or something similar. But the Public Security Bureau's investigation is now a criminal measure, which means that in Beijing's eyes, Shen Po-yang has become a criminal suspect. Shen Po-yang said this was the sixth time in a year and the next step would likely be a wanted notice. He then added, In November of that year, CCTV even aired a documentary specifically exposing Shen Po-yang. In the video, Chen Lei, a professor at Renmin University of China's law school, declared that they would use an Interpol red notice to arrest him globally. For an average person, that would be pretty scary, right? Yet, three days later, Shen Po-yang flew straight to Germany, and even spoke out in front of the German parliament, declaring that the CCP wants to intimidate and silence Taiwanese people, but brave Taiwanese people will never back down. With these four rounds, I honestly don't get it. Is Beijing trying to scare him, or are they trying to turn him into a hero? If you think it's the former, type 1. If you think they're turning him into a hero, type hero. Actually, from this exchange, you can tell that Shen Po-yang's understanding of the CCP is spot-on. I don't believe his stance is determined by any political party. Rather, it's derived from his research. It's his research, his past experiences, and his insights that have shaped his firm anti-CCP stance. But is he able to gain such high momentum just by playing the anti-CCP card? Of course not. On the contrary, his extreme anti-CCP stance has actually caused him to stumble badly before. In 2025, the DPP launched a massive recall campaign targeting KMT legislators. This event was the largest recall operation in Taiwan's history. We actually did a show about it back then, so for those interested, you're welcome to go watch it. In that campaign, Shen Po-yang was at the forefront as a key leader, framing the recalls as resisting China to protect Taiwan. In the end, all 25 recall motions failed completely. Not a single one succeeded. After the loss, all the criticism was directed at him, because he had elevated the recall campaign to a matter of resisting China. This implied that anyone who didn't support it was on the side of the CCP, which ended up offending many blue camp voters and swing voters. It was also because of this that Shen Po-yang earned a label. He is a lightning rod for hatred. So when the DPP was looking for a Taipei mayoral candidate this time, as soon as his name came up, there was widespread opposition within the party. Even he himself said, I am the biggest target for the blue and white camps. If I run, I'll just be constantly smeared. But he also said that a soldier doesn't have the right to choose the battlefield, just like I have no way of choosing whether or not China wants to put out a warrant for my arrest. The implication being, if they need him, he'll step up. On May 13th of this year, the DPP officially nominated him to face off against Chiang Wan-An. The opening poll numbers were 58% to 30%, with Shen Po-yang trailing by 28 percentage points. On August 6, Storm Media published a commentary titled Shen Po-Yang, the Outsider in the Taipei mayoral election. It wrote that by the end of the year, it was no longer a question of whether Shen Po-Yang would be elected, but rather how badly he would be defeated. So how did Shen Po-Yang manage to narrow this gap to 1.2% within just a few months? Half of the answer lies with Chang Wan-An. Chang Wan-An's story is also very rich and legendary, and it's worth us dedicating a separate episode to it. So if you'd like to see that, leave a comment and let me know and I'll arrange it. Setting aside Chang Wan-an's personal background, looking solely at his performance as the current mayor of Taipei, it is indeed not very satisfactory. For those of you in Taipei, please feel free to leave a comment and tell us whether you are satisfied with Mayor Chang and whether you think Taipei has become a better place under his administration. Leave a comment and share your thoughts with us all. Isn't there a line from Stephen Chow that He goes, if the emperor does a good job, there won't be any beggars in the world? By the same logic, if the mayor does a good job, there might not be any ocean currents either. Mayor Chang isn't without his achievements, Phil. He opened the Taipei Dome. The circular line of the MRT is fully under construction, and NVIDIA has set up shop in Taipei. These are the three things he loves to talk about most. But the lives of ordinary people aren't spent inside the Taipei Dome every day. Conversely, Taipei's facing a rat infestation this year, dubbed the Anshu Rebellion. Rats are everywhere, on the MRT, mall handrails, and in department stores, like they own the place. And then there's the issue of tree cutting. Over the past year, Taipei has actually cut down over 3,000 trees, and the reasons have never been clearly explained, leaving many citizens feeling baffled, with some even asking if the city government has a vendetta against trees. Objectively speaking, in the latest approval rating survey for county and city mayors by Taiwan's Commonwealth Magazine, Chang Wan'an is ranked 13th out of 22 mayors, and among the six special municipalities, he only ranks fourth, both placing him in the bottom half. It goes to show that his administration has indeed failed to gain widespread favor among the citizens of Taipei. However, in the current election campaign, Shen Po-Yang has demonstrated an astonishing level of familiarity and ability to explain the vision for municipal governance and specific implementation plans. I watched Li Su-du's interview with him, which included all sorts of sharp questions related to municipal affairs, such as city government management, citizen complaints, and the city government's support for child care, among many others. Shen Po-Yang has very good, detailed, and concrete policy plans for all of them. It's clear that he has really put in a lot of effort to study what the municipal issues are, what solutions exist for these problems, and finally to propose his own set of feasible plans, which is why he can handle them with such ease. This is also why more and more cross-party voters and independent voters are discovering that Shen Po-Yang gives them the impression of being pragmatic, someone who truly understands their problems and might actually be able to solve them. However, with just this layer, Shen Po-Yang would only be considered a decent candidate, and might not necessarily be able to carry the current strong wave of support. He also has a rather unique quality, one that many professional politicians lack. He's actually very humble toward his opponents, very decent and kind, and he doesn't resort to malicious attacks. Although he holds a firm anti-communist stance, he is actually not an extremist or radical person, despite the fact that his past remarks have earned him a label associated with intense hatred. But in this election campaign, his interactions with voters revealed that he is actually gentle and decent. For example, some supporters wanted to stage a cat-for-a-prince story to insinuate things about Chang Wan-an's background, because Chang Wan-an's father was an illegitimate son born to Chang Ching-kuo's mistress, whom he never officially married. But Shen Po-Yang publicly opposed this, saying that the election campaign should return to debates about public policy. This stance won him the favor of quite a few centrist voters. Also, in an exclusive interview in August, when discussing the controversy over the Chiang family DNA, Shen Po-Yang said he was more concerned with municipal affairs and didn't pay much attention to his opponent's family. He also consistently emphasized running a positive, rational campaign rather than engaging in negative smear tactics. So, to a certain extent, this has softened Taiwan's traditionally intense, confrontational campaign culture, allowing Taiwanese people to rediscover the warmth and human touch of democratic elections through their interactions with him. And so the ocean current has turned into a warm current. There is another reason, and it's the most fundamental one. It has made Taipei residents feel like they are truly being asked for their input again. What do I mean by that? During the campaign, Shen Po-Yang wanted citizens to engage in direct dialogue with him, inviting them to participate in discussions about public affairs together. He set up a line platform called Mayor Listen Up. Once you enter, you become a little animal. Like a commuter, a renter, a parent, or an elder. All kinds of animals lining up, you know, waiting to have their say to this future mayor. You can see your place in line, and you can also read what the people ahead of you have said. Less than two days after this platform went live, the number of messages exceeded 10,000, And by September 22nd, it was already approaching over 50,000. We all know that democracy should actually be people-centered, with the people in charge. The people are just temporarily handing over this political power to politicians for a few years. The people are the real bosses. But the current representative system has actually gradually shifted power into the hands of politicians. It's only during elections that politicians will bend down, you know, to trick people for votes. Therefore, the kind of civic participation design that Puma Shen has created not only returns to the original intent of democratic politics, but also encourages voters' enthusiasm for participating in public affairs, and even more so, makes voters feel that they are the true masters of the city. That is why Puma Shen's popularity has been soaring. Overall, he is a candidate who already possesses great qualities, is capable, willing to spend time and energy learning and delving into municipal affairs, and is truly committed to creating a better living environment for the citizens of Taipei. Whether it's his communication skills, critical thinking, or learning ability, he has many bright spots. However, does this mean that Puma Shen can turn the tide in Taipei? Not necessarily. Whether polling support can ultimately translate into actual votes remains to be seen. While Puma Shen's support is high, much of it comes from young people, and many of the young people living in Taipei are transplants from other parts of the country who don't have voting rights. Most importantly, Taipei currently still has a voter structure where blue outweighs green. In the 2022 Taipei mayoral election, there were three sets of candidates. The DPP took 30% of the vote, the TPP took 25%, and the KMT took 42%. So looking at the base, the DPP has a 10% smaller foundation of votes to fall back on compared to the KMT. So whether Chen Buyong can break out of his base and win over votes from TPP or even KMT supporters is the final key to determining his success or failure. There's just over a month left until Taiwan's 9-in-1 elections. Subscribe to TrueView and let's follow this rare political spectacle together. Will the ocean current ultimately cause Taipei to flip? Friends, tell me, do you hope for a flip? Alright, that's all for today. Thanks for watching, everyone. What do you think of Chen Buyong? Especially for our friends in Taiwan, what is your take on this intense and shocking election battle in Taipei? Do you support Chang Wanan or Chen Buyong? Let us know in the comments section and let's continue the discussion there. All right, thanks for watching, everyone, and have a great weekend. Before you go, don't forget to give me a like. I welcome you all to subscribe to TrueView, and please feel free to share my program with more friends so that more people can learn about a candidate like Chen Buyong. And don't forget about that fan hype feature. Every interaction you have helps trigger YouTube's recommendation algorithm, allowing my hard work to spread further and letting more people see my videos. So here, Chen Fei would like to thank you all in advance. And don't forget, we'll see you again tomorrow at the same time on TrueView. Tomorrow, we're going to tell you a very interesting story. Do you know what the 96-year-old retired investment guru Warren Buffett does every night? Same time tomorrow on TrueView. We'll see you there. Bye-bye.