Two weeks ago, an old lady called in to a pirate radio station based in southern Taiwan and urged people to "rise up in rebellion and raise our hoes" as a way of venting her anger over Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (
One of those reactions came from Beijing. It did not come from the Chinese government itself this time, as the authorities in Beijing appear to have taken cognisance of the fact that its verbal attacks have actually helped the Democratic Progressive Party in past elections.
Instead, Xu Bodong (
Two days later, when traveling to Hong Kong to attend a forum, Xu repeated his threats.
Another reaction came from the National Communications Commission (NCC), which raided four pirate radio stations and summoned a number of their hosts for questioning.
These two reactions are evidence that Beijing and the KMT are working together to prevent Taiwanese independence.
Although an NCC spokesman claimed that the clampdown had nothing to do with the remarks the radio stations broadcast about Ma, this seems highly unlikely. If the NCC was simply enforcing a ban on underground radio stations, why did it decide to do so at this time?
More importantly, why were armed police required to detain the unarmed owners of the radio stations? What's more, the problem of pirate radio stations has arisen as a result of the inequitable distribution of broadcasting frequencies, an issue left over from the KMT's authoritarian rule. Was the NCC trying to resolve this problem by force?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, one thing is clear: Ma has become Beijing's blue-eyed boy. Since he is now the apple of the Chinese Communist Party's eye, no one is allowed to harm a hair on his head. Beijing began to dote on Ma from the moment he took over the chairmanship of the KMT, and the chairman's favored status was secured when he claimed to be a fan of Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Ma has launched the recall motion against Chen despite the risk of exacerbating the pan-green-pan-blue divide, thus giving Beijing an excuse to intervene. Could Ma hope to make a greater contribution to Beijing's master plan?
The question at issue is, of course: With Hu trusting Ma, should the Taiwanese also put their trust in him?
Taiwanese should take heed of the similarities between how the NCC clamped down on the underground radio stations and how Beijing suppresses dissent and press freedom. The manner in which a little old lady's remarks were interpreted as advocating the assassination of Ma and then suppressed amounts to the suppression of press freedom. If Ma is elected president, the public needs to ask itself whether he will attack press freedom further -- to the extent that every dissenting voice is suppressed, as it is in China.
Paul Lin is a political commentator based in Taipei.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers