The Mainland Affairs Council and Government Information Office (GIO) announced yesterday that temporary stationing of reporters from China in Taiwan for news reporting would soon be allowed. Currently, China allows temporary stays of one to one and half months each by Taiwan reporters for news coverage. The new GIO policy would be roughly on par with mainland practice. Beyond this, there is talk of China's Xinhua News Agency opening a bureau in Taipei in the near future. It would be nice if this facilitated the free flow of information from Taiwan to China and the closure of the gap between the two in democratic development. Certainly the new GIO policy is in the hope that the people of China may learn more about the positive aspects of Taiwan society, its prosperity, its democratic accomplishments and individual freedoms. As journalists in China seem, however, to hold rather different "perspectives" and "understandings" about their role and the importance of press freedom, we can hardly feel optimistic.
In the past, the impression of Taiwan pedaled by its media focussed on natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes, political unrest such as protest demonstrations and antics in the legislature, and social ills such as crime or child abuse. This, of course, was to bolster the government's need to shelter their own people from the notion that there could be a prosperous Chinese society which respected political and personal freedoms.
Journalists in China have traditionally served the interests of the state. There is no "fourth estate" operating a watchdog, often in confrontation with those on power. There is only the role of government mouthpieces or party lickspittle. PRC President Jiang Zemin's (江澤民) recent fallout with Hong Kong media shows what is expected of journalists. Despite his repeated denials, the Hong Kong media continued to speculate that Jiang has already decided to reappoint SAR Chief Tung Chee-hwa (董建華). Jiang was outraged by the Hong Kong media's refusal to take his words at face value and its persistent probing, the media's determination to do what, in free countries, is seen as its job.
It is not just that letting Xinhua come to Taiwan is unlikely to result in better, more balanced news coverage of Taiwan affairs in China. There is another, security aspect to consider. Xinhua has been widely used for political ends elsewhere. Before the handover of Hong Kong, the news agency was essentially an underground extension of China's foreign ministry, with over half of its staff members being PRC officials. Through Xinhua, the PRC government lobbied for support among Hong Kong business and political circles. Elsewhere it is, notoriously, used as a front for China's intelligence services. The last thing this country needs is Beijing spooks using journalistic cover to foment trouble with the help of local reunificationists -- whose loyalty is so obviously not to Taiwan. Nor can the influence on local opinion of Xinhua pronouncing on Taiwan politics from a local base be anything but malign, given the potential for its manipulation by those influential Taiwan media organizations which appear to be fellow travellers of Beijing policy.
The fact is that opening Taiwan to Chinese reporters and Xinhua will just allow for a greater volume of biased distortion about Taiwan to be visited upon the heads of people in China and give China's agents unparalleled access to Taiwanese society and therefore unparalleled ability to do mischief. We understand that this relaxation of restrictions is seen by the Chen Shui-bian (
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