When It Comes to Taiwan, China Hopes 'Tomorrow Will Be Better'
In its latest soft power push, the PRC has roped in Taiwanese singers to perform a feel-good song from an unlikely source.
In the hours leading up to midnight on New Year's Eve, PRC government broadcaster CCTV6 (電影頻道) dropped a series of videos on social media featuring 30 singers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait crooning “Tomorrow Will Be Better” (明天會更好). Soon, the song’s hashtag clocked up 830 million views on Weibo.
CCTV6’s 2023 rendition of “Tomorrow Will Be Better”
The tune was composed by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Lo Ta-yu (羅大佑) in 1985, taking inspiration from both the Live Aid anthem “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” recorded by the UK charity supergroup Band Aid, and “We Are the World,” for which multiple celebrity artists came together at the close of the USA for Africa event. As for “Tomorrow Will Be Better,” it was recorded to mark the International Year of Peace (1986) and the 40th anniversary of the end of Japanese rule in Taiwan. It was a hit both at home and in the PRC, and still scores extremely high on rating sites like Douban (豆瓣). For many, it exudes a sense of nostalgia and optimism for a time when China was opening up to the world and would soon join Taiwan as one of the big Asian economic “tigers.”
“Tomorrow Will Be Better” in its original 1980s glory
Although this latest rendition changes none of the lyrics, the song’s peacenik vibe is turned on its head, propagating the PRC’s vision of cross-strait unification — a cause for which it is willing to use military force. The implication is that although the past between Taiwan and China has been rough, this can be fixed (“Who can bear to see his past sorrows take away our smiles?”). The solution, as one singer says in an interlude, is to “work hard together with one heart” for a better tomorrow. It's got all the feel-good appeal of a cutesy nationalist Band Aid.
Some very big names were roped in, including Xiao Zhan (肖戰) and Wang Yibo (王一博), popular influencers with huge young fan bases who made their names in the hit 2019 TV show The Untamed (陳情令). Hashtags that included their names got 320 million and 47.5 million Weibo clicks, respectively. Three members of the viral band TFBoys — still in their very early twenties — offer something for even younger audiences.
While the song’s release was explicitly linked to New Year’s, it also came just days before Taiwan’s national elections on January 13 — something Taiwanese observers do not see as coincidental. Wu Su-yao (吳思瑤), a legislator with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, called this an example of election interference, cognitive warfare, and United Front tactics. Online, some suggested it may be an attempt to influence Taiwan’s next generation of voters, who may be able to swing future votes in Beijing’s favor.
Beijing’s Unlikely Minstrel
“On his yellow face there is the red mud; In his black eyes there is a white terror” — Lo Ta-yu’s “The Orphan of Asia” circa 1983
Ironically, the man behind “Tomorrow Will Be Better” has long-held political views that would not be welcome in Xi Jinping’s China. His iconic ballad “The Orphan of Asia” (亞細亞的孤兒) recounts the tragedy of modern Taiwan, including the Kuomintang’s authoritarian rule. His 1991 Cantonese hit “Queen’s Road East” (皇后大道東), an expression of the anxiety around Hong Kong’s impending handover, was banned in mainland China — both when it was first released in 1991 and again during Hong Kong’s immense 2019 pro-democracy protests. Lo himself supported Hong Kong pro-democracy icon Anson Chan (陳方安生) in local elections and performed “Queen’s Road East” in 2014 to support the city’s pro-democracy Umbrella Movement protests.
“With just a ‘bye-bye’ this dear friend is leaving this city and going far away; it'll be up to our Great Comrades to put a new face on everything” — Lo Ta-yu in “Queen’s Road East”
This isn’t the first time the CCP has looked past Lo’s complicated politics to repurpose his work for their own means: his other Hong Kong handover ditty, “Pearl of the Orient” (東方之珠) is wildly popular in mainland China (far more so than in Hong Kong itself) and during the CCP’s centenary in 2021 it was officially acknowledged as an important patriotic song.
If you’re thinking that the upbeat, poppy outlook of “Tomorrow Will Be Better” sounds a world away from the thoughtful and sardonic tone of Lo’s other work, you’re onto something: his original lyrics underwent massive cuts and rewriting to make them more palatable to the mass market. For Lo himself, making tomorrow better was about more than just good vibes. As he put it:
The scars of the past will never heal…
Let us tear apart this old world
And create a beautiful new one.
那舊時撕裂的傷痕 永不會愈合了…
讓我們撕碎這舊世界
讓我們重構美麗新世界
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