Responses to Snyder
I was disappointed to note that the author [Charles Snyder] of the op-ed piece entitled “A free press is an essential freedom” (May 11, page 8) did not bother to check his facts.
The Central News Agency (CNA), Taiwan’s major wire service, was criticized in the article for being “decimated,” ostensibly by the Taiwan government, “with the return to Taiwan of one of its two reporters here (ie, Washington) at the end of the month.”
The fact is that one of the CNA correspondents in Washington is returning at the end of June following the conclusion of his three-year posting, and will be immediately replaced by another reporter.
Despite our budgetary constraints, we are committed to maintaining two reporters in the US capital.
The article also claims that “the Washington office has been warned by CNA bosses in Taipei to promote [President] 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.”
The fact is that there has never been such a warning issued. If there had been, such a warning, however secret, would not have escaped the attention of the news media in Taiwan.
These simple facts would have been made clear to anyone who had bothered to make a simple telephone call. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.
JAY CHEN
Director of Foreign News
Central News Agency
I was taken aback by Charles Snyder’s commentary. In it he inveighs against Representative Jason Yuan’s (袁健生) supposedly poor relations with members of Taiwan’s Washington press corps. Mr Snyder has the facts wrong.
Having stepped down half a year ago from his position as the Taipei Times’ Washington correspondent, Mr Snyder is perhaps unaware of the ongoing practices of our office in keeping the press well informed.
As he points out, there indeed has been a tradition at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US of hosting monthly briefings to keep the Taiwan press corps abreast of its activities.
These meetings, contrary to Mr Snyder’s suggestion, continue to take place. They have occurred regularly over the past three months. The next press briefing is scheduled for May 21. All members of the local Taiwan press corps are invited to attend these meetings, which are held in Mandarin.
After the meeting, English-speaking reporters, if present, are provided with an oral summary of the discussion. The Taipei Times’ own William Lowther recently attended the press conference in February. This office issues press releases, both in English and Chinese, whenever there’s a need.
Having practiced journalism in Washington for quite some time, Mr Snyder is well aware that “on the record” comments are not a permanent right of press, but are done at the discretion of the person being interviewed.
Freedom of speech includes the right not to speak, and freedom of the press compels no one to speak to the press.
This is the case regardless of whether a reporter is speaking with Representative Yuan or an official at the US Department of State.
Our office nevertheless strives to provide the press with as much detailed, on-the-record information as possible.
Over the past two decades, the Republic of China (Taiwan) has made steady progress in political reforms. The spirit of democracy, freedom of press and respect for human rights has become firmly rooted in the hearts of our people. Taiwan will continue to make strides along the path of deepening democracy and rule of law.
This is to reassure that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration will never relax its efforts to safeguard freedom of the press.
At the same time, I hope that our friends in the media may acquire a deeper and more balanced understanding of Taiwan.
We look forward to working with the press to advance our shared, universal values.
YING CHANG
Director, Press Division
Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States
Charles Snyder replies: Contrary to the assertion by Mr Chang, who is TECRO’s official spokesman, Representative Jason Yuan has ended the long and valuable practice of monthly on-the-record “tea party” press conferences.
Periodic press briefings are now held by a deputy representative, and these have proven far less valuable and newsworthy than the full-blown sessions with the boss, the de facto ambassador.
The fact that my successor has been invited to one such TECRO briefing in the past six months does not alter this fact.
As far as I can tell, the only concrete effort by Yuan to increase the information flow has been to translate more Chinese-language CNA articles into English, and to issue press releases.
Although I have not been the Taipei Times’ correspondent since December, I remain deeply involved in Taiwan affairs and keep in close touch with many Taiwan reporters and other people involved in Taiwan affairs.
In the small Taiwan-oriented community in Washington where everybody knows everybody else’s business, that is not hard, as Mr Chang should know.
I am shocked by Mr Chang’s comments that the press, and therefore the Taiwanese people, do not have a right to know what the Taiwan government and its US representative are up to, and what the country’s top representative has to say about policies and developments that affect the Taiwanese people.
That is a shameful response to a valid demand that is central to the freedom of the press and democracy. Mr Chang underscores my point — that Thomas Jefferson’s view of press freedom was correct and that press freedom in Taiwan, and in its Washington outpost, has deteriorated under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
I do agree with Mr Chang on one matter: that in past decades Taiwan “has made steady progress in political reforms.” Up until the past year, that is.
As for the letter from Mr Chen, who was a colleague of mine when he was in the CNA’s Washington bureau some years ago, the fact that the new CNA management has played up stories that praise or promote Ma Ying-jeou’s agenda and discourage or spike stories critical of China is well known, as far as I can gather from talking with people here.
It may have been a secret early on, but one has only to look at the open letter issued last October by Chuang Feng-chia (莊豐嘉), the former CNA deputy editor-in-chief, who resigned over the KMT government’s interference with CNA news operations.
Chuang complained that CNA reporters were often asked to withdraw reports critical of Ma and his administration by CNA chairman Chen Shen-ching (陳申青). Chuang also noted that the new CNA vice chairman, Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), had been Ma’s presidential campaign spokesman — not necessarily the most qualified person for the job.
Coincidentally, the same day as the open letter appeared, the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists released a statement of concern over press freedom in Taiwan.
“Taiwan’s new government is exhibiting worrying reflexes toward attempting to control the media,” including the state-owned media, the federation complained.
In addition, even a cursory comparison of CNA’s political stories now with a couple of years ago underscores the radical change in editorial policy.
As for the staffing of CNA’s Washington bureau, no replacement has been named for the reporter who is about to leave, and when I wrote my piece there appeared to be none on the horizon. After my piece appeared, Mr Chen told me that the agency had a replacement in mind who would be announced eventually. In that case, I stand corrected. However, I must point out that until recently, the bureau normally had three reporters.
Flawed criteria
The 10-point analysis in your Letters column on May 12 regarding Taiwan’s supposed “meeting all relevant criteria for statehood” has some serious flaws. The following are notable.
The statement that Taiwan has a “permanent population” conveniently ignores the fact that native Taiwanese people currently hold ID cards, passports and home residency certificates of the “Republic of China” (ROC) but without any clear legal basis. To explain this, we must note that Taiwan was under a period of belligerent occupation after the completion of the Japanese surrender ceremonies on Oct. 25, 1945, but it was still sovereign Japanese territory until the coming into force of the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) on April 28, 1952. However, the ROC military authorities issued an order authorizing the mass naturalization of native Taiwanese people as ROC citizens on Jan. 12, 1946. To issue such an order over the population in occupied territory is a war crime.
The statement that Taiwan has its own armed forces is problematic in a similar way. According to most historical accounts, limited military conscription over some Taiwanese youth began in the late 1940s, and then was more formally established in the early 1950s. However, the imposition of military conscription policies over a population in occupied territory is a war crime.
These war crimes are continuing into the present day.
Today, “Taiwan” is a geographic term. In terms of “permanent population,” for Taiwan to be a country, the native Taiwanese people would have to carry ID cards, passports and so on in the name of the “Republic of Taiwan” or something similar. They don’t. Furthermore, the classification of native Taiwanese persons as ROC citizens is incorrect and invalid under international law.
Notably, the decision in the case of Roger C.S. Lin et al v United States of America in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, handed down on March 18, 2008, held that the native Taiwanese plaintiffs “have essentially been persons without a state for almost 60 years.” Such a conclusion necessarily arises from the fact that in the SFPT, Taiwan was not awarded to the ROC.
Taiwan’s lonely “outsider” status is not the result of dreadfully misguided policies by enemies of Taiwan, but a result of the world community’s failure to prosecute ROC officials for war crimes committed in past eras, and which continue to be committed today.
ROGER C.S. LIN
Taipei
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