A Chinese contestant in a model competition imagines an invasion of Taiwan A Chinese contestant in a model competition imagines an invasion of Taiwan (CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Tanks of China’s People’s Liberation Army were rolling toward Taipei after destroying a Taiwanese Army Humvee Friday (April 19) – at least in the imagination of a participant in a mock-up contest in China.

According to a picture seen online, two tanks bearing Chinese flags were rolling past a shuttered 7-Eleven convenience store and a couple of shops and restaurants with typical Taiwanese products, such as one bearing a sign for Yongkang beef noodles, the Central News Agency reported.

A damaged Humvee from the Taiwanese military stood still in the other direction, with a bullet hole in its windshield and its doors open, while above the road, signs showed the location as 4 kilometer from Taipei and 27 km from Keelung.

However, the organizers used sticky tape to partly hide the Chinese flags and Taiwanese Army logo and the data of the contestant to cover a President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) election billboard above the convenience store, CNA reported.

The mock-up was one of the contestants in the 4th Beijing model exchange competition.

According to commentators in Taiwan, the appearance of such a scene at a popular event showed a rising tide of anti-Taiwanese sentiment among the Chinese public, whose antipathies have traditionally been directed mostly against Japan.

Taiwan recently expelled a Chinese academic noted for advocating a military takeover of the island, leading the government to plan a ban on such visitors.