How Taiwan used women's voices to send secret messages into China and woo defectors

Large loudspeakers stand at the Beishan Broadcasting Wall, built in 1967 to transmit propaganda from Taiwan to mainland China, in Kinmen, Taiwan. (An Rong Xu/Getty Images)

KINMEN, Taiwan — Back in the 1970s, Tian Liyun could not travel to China's mainland, but her voice could.

She was among a crew of Taiwanese broadcasters who took turns trying to cajole listeners in Communist China to defect. They recited slogans and played music, with powerful speakers and shortwave radios carrying their message the short distance across the strait to mainland China.