Last week's reshuffle of the Chinese Television System's (CTS) board of directors and the appointment of Chiang Hsia (
When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in opposition, it strongly criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) monopoly on media ownership, saying that the media were being used as a government mouthpiece. It therefore advocated the removal of party politics from the media. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Chen invited a group of academics and media figures to draw up a white paper on media reform, laying out plans to make the state-owned media an independent public institution. But after winning the election, the Chen government failed to enact the reforms that were anticipated.
The political reality is this: regardless of how liberal or broad-based a political party might be, it will try to influence public opinion through media appointments.
There is a growing feeling that the government will now not give up control of the media. It appears then that matters must be addressed at a higher level: reform should be sought via the Constitution.
Chen has declared that he will push through
constitutional amendments. So far so good, but the amended Constitution should contain a chapter dedicated to freedom of speech and the media. This would set a standard for the media's interaction with the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as a recognized Fourth Estate.
There should be articles referring specifically to the creation of an independent media and a National Media Commission that is not subject to the control of any political party. This body would be responsible for integrating and distributing public media resources and monitoring the performance of private media outlets, for drawing up reform proposals and for providing a rational and impartial forum for debate that can improve policy.
This chapter in the Constitution would also cover the disclosure of government-held information and official secrets. Procedures would also be put in place so that the news media can receive legal protection when exercising their right to publish. Constitutional interpretations by the Council of Grand Justices relating to media issues would be incorporated in the amended Constitution to serve as a reference for future judgements in media-related cases.
This country has only just emerged from a period of authoritarian government to become a Western-style democracy, but its laws and administrative structures are far from comprehensive. Although some are doing their best to establish a Fourth Estate, their progress until now has been unsteady.
The amending of the Constitution provides an
opportunity to accelerate this process. Anyone concerned about the management reshuffle within state-run media outlets and the question of what rights the media are entitled to should concentrate on creating a new and comprehensive regulatory mechanism that upholds these rights and protects dissent.
Chinese agents often target Taiwanese officials who are motivated by financial gain rather than ideology, while people who are found guilty of spying face lenient punishments in Taiwan, a researcher said on Tuesday. While the law says that foreign agents can be sentenced to death, people who are convicted of spying for Beijing often serve less than nine months in prison because Taiwan does not formally recognize China as a foreign nation, Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said. Many officials and military personnel sell information to China believing it to be of little value, unaware that
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
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