Recently, a group of former Government Information Office (GIO) officials who were responsible for oppressing opinions and journalism under the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) party-state system held a press conference, calling on every Taiwanese to donate NT$10 to support TVBS -- a Chinese-invested local cable TV channel.
This move was not surprising. What was strange was why they did not feel ashamed. Especially former GIO chief Shaw Yu-ming (
Indeed, Shaw did not close down any TV stations during his term from 1987 to 1991. But he closed down several magazines. When democracy activist Deng Nan-jung (
Perhaps Shaw's honest statement can be interpreted in another way. While saying humbly that he had not closed down any TV stations, he did go all out to protect the only three TV stations in Taiwan at that time.
Controlled by the KMT, the government and the military, the three TV stations never listened to anyone but Shaw, and never said anything that wasn't what he wanted them to say. Most interesting is that the China Television Co remains tightly controlled by the KMT to this day. Thus, Shaw and the other GIO ministers failed to close down the TV station that was the most eligible candidate to be shut.
The KMT focused on magazines rather than TV stations, and it was common for the party to close down magazines -- it did not hesitate to do so. This is exactly what the KMT was good at at that time.
Shaw's ferocity during his term become evident through the following example. During the 1989 legislative elections, the Journalist (新新聞) weekly and Era TV jointly produced a series of videos entitled "witnessing the elections." The first episode was called "The battle between two parties." However, before the video was aired, Shaw ordered that it be banned unless some changes were made to the content.
Control over whether or not a video could be aired lay solely in his hands. Under such circumstances, why would he need to close down TV stations or search newspapers?
But in terms of holding a fascist attitude, Shaw could not compete with his predecessor, People First Party Chairman James Soong (
Interestingly, during that time TVBS' general manager Lee Tao (
It seems that history does repeat itself.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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