Driving around Pingtung County in a blue delivery truck, one could be forgiven for thinking that all you would hear on the radio would be Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) talk shows and Taiwanese folk songs. In Pingtung and Greater Kaohsiung, you don’t expect to hear radio programs from China, so what are they doing on the air?
In a move that hearkens back to the propaganda wars of the 1960s and 1970s, but with a twist, China is invading the AM radio frequencies in southern Taiwan with programs that push Beijing’s agenda — unification, economic interdependence, cultural exchanges and friendly sentiment aimed at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). These programs are being beamed from Fujian Province and although they are mostly from private stations, there is no doubt that Chinese officials have a say about their content.
This type of radio onslaught is to be expected from an aggressive neighboring country with territorial designs, but where are Taiwan’s countermeasures? What is the National Communications Commission (NCC) doing about this? The answer is that commission officials and the government-at-large are doing nothing, while southern Taiwanese are subjected to pro-unification propaganda.
Not so long ago, an invasion of high-powered broadcasts from Chinese radio stations would not have been tolerated. The commission or the military would have taken the propaganda threat seriously and adopted technical countermeasures rather than let Chinese radio waves blanket the south and west of the nation unopposed.
NCC acting spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) threw cold water on this idea, saying interference could only be conducted via legal means, a difficult thing to obtain in a clandestine propaganda war.
Under the Ma government, the commission does not bat an eye at this type of propaganda. No wonder, considering how some of the so-called news radio programs originating in China push the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with China that Ma championed and discredit reports that his popularity is declining.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) was right when she described the large-scale influx of Chinese radio programs across the AM frequencies in Taiwan as “cultural unification.”
However, what is more deplorable is the government and the commission’s lack of attention regarding this issue, which borders on outright collusion. Even worse is the attitude of former Radio Taiwan International president Cheryl Lai (賴秀如), who dismissed Taiwanese radio stations in the south as platforms for quack health products and implied that they need to compete with Chinese stations on an equal playing ground if they want to succeed — this is not fair considering that their competitors in Fujian Province are likely backed with government money.
From the look of things the Ma government has not only thrown in the towel in the propaganda war, it is actively colluding with China to allow pro-Beijing content onto the radio waves, especially in the south where pro-DPP sentiment runs high. Although many people will dismiss these programs, others will listen, especially when they are also subjected to a barrage of pro-China media outlets in TV and print form.
Ma’s so-called policy of detente with China is nothing but a smokescreen used by Beijing to mask an outright cultural and economic blitzkrieg of Taiwan for the purpose of integration. Given the government’s clear lack of enthusiasm for dealing with this threat, this is a battle China looks set to win.
Father’s Day, as celebrated around the world, has its roots in the early 20th century US. In 1910, the state of Washington marked the world’s first official Father’s Day. Later, in 1972, then-US president Richard Nixon signed a proclamation establishing the third Sunday of June as a national holiday honoring fathers. Many countries have since followed suit, adopting the same date. In Taiwan, the celebration takes a different form — both in timing and meaning. Taiwan’s Father’s Day falls on Aug. 8, a date chosen not for historical events, but for the beauty of language. In Mandarin, “eight eight” is pronounced
In a recent essay, “How Taiwan Lost Trump,” a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, Christian Whiton, accuses Taiwan of diplomatic incompetence — claiming Taipei failed to reach out to Trump, botched trade negotiations and mishandled its defense posture. Whiton’s narrative overlooks a fundamental truth: Taiwan was never in a position to “win” Trump’s favor in the first place. The playing field was asymmetrical from the outset, dominated by a transactional US president on one side and the looming threat of Chinese coercion on the other. From the outset of his second term, which began in January, Trump reaffirmed his
Despite calls to the contrary from their respective powerful neighbors, Taiwan and Somaliland continue to expand their relationship, endowing it with important new prospects. Fitting into this bigger picture is the historic Coast Guard Cooperation Agreement signed last month. The common goal is to move the already strong bilateral relationship toward operational cooperation, with significant and tangible mutual benefits to be observed. Essentially, the new agreement commits the parties to a course of conduct that is expressed in three fundamental activities: cooperation, intelligence sharing and technology transfer. This reflects the desire — shared by both nations — to achieve strategic results within
It is difficult not to agree with a few points stated by Christian Whiton in his article, “How Taiwan Lost Trump,” and yet the main idea is flawed. I am a Polish journalist who considers Taiwan her second home. I am conservative, and I might disagree with some social changes being promoted in Taiwan right now, especially the push for progressiveness backed by leftists from the West — we need to clean up our mess before blaming the Taiwanese. However, I would never think that those issues should dominate the West’s judgement of Taiwan’s geopolitical importance. The question is not whether
RSS