Thomas Jefferson, the third US president and the man who wrote the US Declaration of Independence, had it right when it came to the freedom of the press.
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” Jefferson wrote to Edward Carrington, a Continental Congress delegate from Virginia in 1787, as the Founding Fathers were finalizing the structure of the American democracy.
With ideas like that, I would venture to say that Jefferson would be rolling over in his grave if he could witness what the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration are doing to press freedom.
With the recent publication of the Freedom House report on global press freedoms, the world has now been let in on a reality that the people of Taiwan have known about for the past year — that because of the KMT assault on the media, until recently the freest press in Asia, press freedom is in serious decline.
Here in Washington, Ma’s clear disdain for the press is having a poisoning impact on what had been, under former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) government, a cordial, symbiotic relationship between reporters and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office.
In the eight years of Chen Shui-bian’s administration, KMT-reared representatives C.J. Chen (程建人) and David Lee (李大維), and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) representative Joseph Wu (吳昭燮), held regular monthly press briefings with the Taiwanese Washington press corps that were open, on the record and no holds barred. They were in the form of “tea parties” and combined comradery and hard-nose question-and-answer sessions.
The point was that through the conversations, the people of Taiwan were kept informed about Washington’s policy and events and both sides developed relationships that helped in the media’s daily newsgathering.
Now, things are completely different under Representative Jason Yuan (袁健生), a long-time deep-blue partisan, who succeeded Wu last summer.
When Yuan did hold press briefings, they were largely or completely off the record, denying the press corps the right to report the facts back to Taiwan. The only reporter who did get stories from Yuan was Norman Fu (傅建中), a diehard KMT supporter who was the China Times correspondent in Washington for decades, and now lives in the area in retirement. Fu and Yuan are old buddies from their days in the KMT fold. The stories Yuan leaked to Fu were critical of the DPP or its leaders.
One Fu story from Yuan was so disrespectful of the other Taiwanese reporters that the press corps staged a boycott against Yuan in an incident whose bad feelings have not yet healed.
The Taipei Times was long blocked from attending the press briefings, on the pretext that the sessions were held in Chinese and the newspaper was in English. This despite the fact that Taipei Times has long had two Taiwanese interns perfectly capable and willing to translate for me everything said at the briefings.
Yuan compounded that affront recently by falsely claiming that American Institute in Taiwan chairman Raymond Burghardt complained to him about being repeatedly misquoted by the Taipei Times, an allegation roundly denied by Burghardt.
Since last October, Yuan has imposed a virtual news blackout, steadfastly refusing to meet the Washington press corps by jettisoning the monthly tea party tradition, which was established in a bipartisan fashion by his predecessors.
Meanwhile, the Central News Agency is being decimated with the return to Taiwan of one of its two reporters here at the end of the month. The office has traditionally fielded a staff of two or three.
The Washington office has been warned by CNA bosses in Taipei to promote Ma’s policies and play up stories about Washington personae who praise Ma’s actions. In addition, they are reminded to skip or downplay any story that criticizes China.
It would do Taiwan’s freedom and democracy well if the KMT and Yuan were to bone up on their Jefferson.
“The only security of all is a free press,” Jefferson wrote. “The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.”
Or: “Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.”
Taiwan’s democracy is too valuable and hard-fought to allow the KMT to pervert it now.
Charles Snyder is the former Washington correspondent for the Taipei Times.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
RSS