The Taiwan Affairs Office is a ministerial-level office under the State Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is responsible for cross-strait relations and sets and implements guidelines and policies related to Taiwan, which is claimed by the People's Republic of China as a province of its own. The agency is not affiliated with the de facto government ruling Taiwan (Republic of China).
Under the "one institution with two names" arrangement, it is also the Chinese Communist Party's Taiwan Work Office of the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs under the CCP Central Committee; the party title is used for party-to-party interactions with Taiwan.
History
In July 1954, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party decided to establish the Central Taiwan Affairs Group. The group and its office were established in 1955. The office was located in the Central Investigation Department, with Qi Yanming as its director, while Yang Yindong was responsible for specific work. During the later period of the Cultural Revolution, Yang concurrently served as the deputy director of the Office of the Central Taiwan Affairs Leading Group, and cooperated with central departments to participate in the amnesty of war criminals and armed agents in Taiwan, the cleanup of prisons, the lenient release of Kuomintang personnel above the county and regimental level, the implementation of the policy of surrendering and uprising personnel, and the handling of rightist work for a total of five years.
In December 1979, the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs was reinstated. At the end of 1979, Deng Xiaoping personally presided over the work on Taiwan, and Deng Yingchao and Liao Chengzhi were put in charge of the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs. The Office of the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs was listed as a unit directly under the Central Committee, with Yang Yindong serving as deputy director. In the spring of 1982, he became director, ultimately leaving the office in September 1985. On September 9, 1988, the executive meeting of the State Council decided to establish the office. In October 1988, Wu Xueqian, Ding Guangen, Li Qingzhou, Geng Wenqing, Tang Shube, and An Min met in Beidaihe. Wu Xueqian conveyed the decision of the Central Committee on the establishment of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office and asked the participants to report on the situation, tasks and staffing of their respective departments' Taiwan work. They also asked for opinions on the tasks, organizational structure, staffing and relationship with the existing Taiwan work departments of the central and state organs. On October 30, 1988, the General Office of the State Council issued a notice which stipulated that "the Taiwan Affairs Office is the agency of the State Council to handle Taiwan affairs" and appointed Ding Guangen as the director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, with Sun Xiaoyu and Chen Zonggao as deputy directors.
On May 31, 1989, the State Council appointed Tang Shubei as the deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office. At the time, the Taiwan Affairs Office had very few staff members, and was divided into five groups: the secretariat group, the research group, the liaison group, the economic group, and the exchange group. Sun Xiaoyu was in charge of the liaison group, Chen Zonggao was in charge of the secretariat group and the economic group, and Tang Shubei was in charge of the research group and the exchange group. Ding Guangen often convened these three deputy directors, and sometimes the heads of each group, to hold meetings in Ding Guangen's conference room. On January 18, 1990, deputy director Tang Shubei spoke to Xinhua News Agency reporters on the institutional functions of the Taiwan Affairs Office. Tang said that the Taiwan Affairs Office, "as the office of the State Council to handle Taiwan-related affairs", will "actively organize, guide, manage and coordinate the Taiwan-related work of the State Council departments, provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and promote the gradual easing of cross-strait relations and the further development of mutual exchanges". Among them, "organizing, guiding, managing and coordinating" is called the "eight-character policy" by the Taiwan Affairs Office system. This is the function approved by the Central Committee when Wu Xueqian and Ding Guangen created the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, which continues to this day.
From March 5 to 7, 1993, the second plenary session of the 14th CCP Central Committee was held in Beijing, and adopted the "Plan on the Reform of Party and Government Institutions". On July 2, 1993, the Central Committee issued the "Notice on Issuing the 'Plan for the Reform of Party and Government Institutions' and the 'Implementation Opinions on the Plan for the Reform of Party and Government Institutions'". Among the adjusted institutions directly under the CCP Central Committee as determined by the "Plan", the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council are one institution with two names and are included in the list of institutions directly under the CCP Central Committee. On June 24, 1993, the Central Committee decided to establish the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs. The Taiwan Affairs Office of the Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council became the working bodies of the leading group. In 2007, the Taiwan Affairs Office established the (ATIEM), consisting of Taiwanese businesses operating in Mainland China. Prior to the 2012 Taiwanese legislative and presidential elections, ATIEM organized discounted flights to Taiwan for Taishang to vote in Taiwanese elections. In October 2025, Taiwan Affairs Office established a Facebook page where it issued bounties on key Taiwanese political figures. In the same month, it announced that it would start giving weekly press conferences from 25 October, doubling from the earlier biweekly schedule.
Functions
The office promotes Chinese unification and manages activities pertaining to the relationship across the Taiwan Strait and which may require interfacing with the government of Taiwan. These include: preparing for negotiations and agreements; direct mail, transport and trade links; propaganda and political influence work related to Taiwan; controlling and censoring media and public relations; handling major incidents; economic planning; intergovernmental exchanges and cooperation; personnel exchanges, observers and symposia; preparing meetings with Taiwanese politicians and officials; and work for international conferences involving Taiwan. It also manages a wide range of exchanges between mainland China and Taiwan in cultural, economic, and scholarly areas.
Organization
The State Council's Notice on the Establishment of Institutions states that the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the CCP Central Committee are one institution with two names and are listed in the list of institutions directly under the CCP Central Committee. The office has the following organizations:
Internal organization
- Secretariat
- General Affairs Bureau
- Research Bureau
- Government Information Office
- Economic Bureau
- Bureau of Taiwan Affairs of Hong Kong and Macao
- Exchange Bureau
- Liaison Office
- Legal Affairs Bureau
- Complaints Coordination Bureau
- Political Party Bureau
- Party Committee (Personnel Bureau)
Directly affiliated public institutions
- Government Service Center
- Information Center
- Cross-Strait Relations Research Center
- Cross-Strait Exchange Center
- Cross-Strait Economic and Technological Cooperation Center
- Jiuzhou Cultural Communication Center
- National Training Center for Taiwan Affairs Cadres
Directly affiliated enterprises
- Beijing Straits Cultural Exchange
- Jiuzhou Publishing
Social organizations
- Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits
- National Society of Taiwan Studies
- China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification
- Cross-Strait Marriage and Family Association
List of directors
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! colspan="2" | Directors of the Central Committee Taiwan Affairs Office
|-
|Name
|Duration of Office
|-
|Qi Yanming
|1955 – 1966
|-
|Luo Qingchang
|1978 – 1982
|-
|Yang Yindong
|1982 – September 1985
|-
|Yang Side
|1985 – March 1991
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! colspan="2" | Directors of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office
|-
|Ding Guangen
|30 October 1988 – 16 November 1990
|-
|Wang Zhaoguo
|16 November 1990 – 9 December 1996
|-
|Chen Yunlin
|9 December 1996 – 3 June 2008
|-
|Wang Yi
|3 June 2008 – 17 March 2013
|-
|Zhang Zhijun
|17 March 2013 – 19 March 2018
|-
|Liu Jieyi
|19 March 2018 – 28 December 2022
|-
|Song Tao
|28 December 2022 –
|}
List of spokespersons
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! colspan="3" | Spokespersons of the Taiwan Affairs Office
|-
|Name
|Duration of office
|
|-
|Zhang Mingqing
|September 2000 – 27 October 2004
|
|-
|Li Weiyi
|March 2002 – 17 December 2008
|
|-
|Yang Yi
|January 2007 – 25 September 2013
|
|-
|Fan Liqing
|January 2007 – 27 May 2015
|
|-
|Ma Xiaoguang
|January 2014 – June 2023
|
|-
|An Fengshan
|October 2015 – July 2019
|
|-
|Zhu Fenglian
|November 2019 – present
|
|-
|Chen Binhua
|June 2023 – present
|
|-
|Wu Xi
|December 2024 – present
|
|-
|Peng Qing'en
|October 2025 – present
|
|-
|Zhang Han
|November 2025 – present
|