The announcement could not have come at a more appropriate moment. Thursday, on the eve of Taiwan’s first national “Freedom of Speech Day”, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it would set up its first Asian bureau in Taipei.
That Taipei won out over Hong Kong to become the group’s 12th bureau made the news both much sweeter and more ironic. It can be seen as recognition not just of how far Taiwan has come in the three decades since RSF was founded, but how quickly Hong Kong’s long vaunted independence has declined in the past two decades.
However, this is not the first time that Taiwan has won out over Hong Kong because of concerns about Beijing’s compromising of the territory’s press and political freedoms. In late October 1993, Father Yves Nalet, the editor of the highly regarded China News Analysis, announced that the journal and its archives would be moving to the newly established Socio-Cultural Research Center at Fu Jen University in Taipei.
China News Analysis, founded in 1953 by another Jesuit, Father Laszlo Ladany, scoured Chinese newspapers and magazines for insight into the workings of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government to provide insight to a readership made up of government officials, diplomats, academics and journalists the world over.
The concern was that after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Beijing, the territory might become less hospitable to China-watchers, and Taiwan was seen as a safer bet — even though 1993 was just six years after the lifting of martial law, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) still dominated Taiwanese media.
China News Analysis’ two Jesuit editors moved to Taiwan the following spring, five years after 43-year-old editor Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) killed himself in defense of free speech — and a free press — as heavily armed police and soldiers tried to storm his office.
Deng had been holed up in his office for 71 days in an effort to avoid arrest, after being charged with sedition in January 1989 for publishing a draft “Taiwan Republic Constitution” in his magazine, Freedom Era Weekly. The charge carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Deng set himself alight on April 7, 1989, sacrificing his life to defend freedom of speech.
While yesterday was the first time the nation marked Freedom of Speech Day to commemorate Deng, it was not the first time April 7 has been commemorated in Taiwan.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) tried to push the Legislative Yuan to honor Deng in 2009 and again in 2012 and 2015. However, municipal governments, largely DPP-run, were eventually the first to do so: First the Tainan City Government in 2012, followed a year later by the Yilan County Government, with Kaohsiung, Taichung, Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung joining in before Taipei did so last year.
Then-president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) vowed in April last year to push for a Freedom of Speech Day, just as she had one year earlier during a memorial at Deng’s grave in New Taipei City’s Jinshan District (金山). Finally, on Dec. 22 last year, the Cabinet approved a proposal to designate April 7 Freedom of Speech Day.
The media landscape in Taiwan has changed dramatically since Deng’s death. The access that Taiwanese have to local and world news today was unimaginable in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Yet defenders of freedom of speech and a free press are needed more than ever in a world filled with “fake news,” political, ethnic and religious unrest, click-bait Web sites and Internet trolling.
Deng’s sacrifice — and those of other pro-democracy campaigners — helped spur the nation toward full democracy and protection of human rights. It is only right that their sacrifices be remembered and honored.
Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on April 9 said that the first group of Indian workers could arrive as early as this year as part of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India and the India Taipei Association. Signed in February 2024, the MOU stipulates that Taipei would decide the number of migrant workers and which industries would employ them, while New Delhi would manage recruitment and training. Employment would be governed by the laws of both countries. Months after its signing, the two sides agreed that 1,000 migrant workers from India would
In recent weeks, Taiwan has witnessed a surge of public anxiety over the possible introduction of Indian migrant workers. What began as a policy signal from the Ministry of Labor quickly escalated into a broader controversy. Petitions gathered thousands of signatures within days, political figures issued strong warnings, and social media became saturated with concerns about public safety and social stability. At first glance, this appears to be a straightforward policy question: Should Taiwan introduce Indian migrant workers or not? However, this framing is misleading. The current debate is not fundamentally about India. It is about Taiwan’s labor system, its
Japan’s imminent easing of arms export rules has sparked strong interest from Warsaw to Manila, Reuters reporting found, as US President Donald Trump wavers on security commitments to allies, and the wars in Iran and Ukraine strain US weapons supplies. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling party approved the changes this week as she tries to invigorate the pacifist country’s military industrial base. Her government would formally adopt the new rules as soon as this month, three Japanese government officials told Reuters. Despite largely isolating itself from global arms markets since World War II, Japan spends enough on its own
On March 31, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs released declassified diplomatic records from 1995 that drew wide domestic media attention. One revelation stood out: North Korea had once raised the possibility of diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In a meeting with visiting Chinese officials in May 1995, as then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) prepared for a visit to South Korea, North Korean officials objected to Beijing’s growing ties with Seoul and raised Taiwan directly. According to the newly released records, North Korean officials asked why Pyongyang should refrain from developing relations with Taiwan while China and South Korea were expanding high-level
RSS