The media was born to act as a check and balance on the government. This means frequent hostility between a government and the media. The Taiwan High Court last week sentenced former Power News (
It was true that Hung obtained classified documents from his friends in the military and wrote about it. His punishment, based on the Statute for Punishment of Betrayal of Military Secrets (
China is an authoritarian state and the scope of its military secrets could include almost anything -- from the health condition of state leaders to news about natural disasters to SARS cases. Like all other dictatorships in history, the breadth and depth of authoritarianism is proportionate to the scope of state secrets. The more dictatorial a government, the more state secrets it has. Of course, these secrets are defined by dictators or the ruling clique, not by the will of the public. Control over the power to define state secrets and the formulation of laws to punish people who leak such secrets is a characteristic of authoritarianism.
In a democratic country, there are fewer state secrets. The definition of "state secrets" in democratic countries is not legitimate unless approved by their legislatures. State secrets cannot be defined by the whims of government agencies, especially not military or intelligence agencies. How can we talk about human rights if such arbitrary definitions incriminate people at every turn?
Press freedoms cannot be without limit or else there would be anarchy. However, Taiwan's most potent weapon in its fight against Beijing is not the armed forces or weapons, but abstract concepts such as freedom and democracy. Freedom of speech is what China fears.
The Control Yuan has said in an investigation report that many military defectors have leaked secrets to Beijing and that China's satellite technology has exposed the nation's military facilities like so many naked bodies. This nation relies on the US for security and what links Taiwan to the US is the shared values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
The malicious leaking of state secrets, which harms national security, should certainly be punished. But the premise for such punishment is that the definition of state secrets must be regulated by law. It should not be unilaterally determined by the military.
A new State Secrets Law (
When there is a conflict between disclosure and national security, we can resort to judicial judgment. Only then can we legally protect military secrets while also protecting press freedoms and freedom of speech.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations