Hundreds of young Taiwanese from around the nation yesterday continued to put pressure on the government to act against media monopolization and reject the sale of the Next Media Group’s (壹傳媒集團) Taiwanese businesses to two consortiums with a six-hour protest outside the Joint Government Office Building, where officials from the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) and academics were holding a public hearing on the sale.
Next Media Group signed an agreement on Tuesday to sell its four Taiwanese businesses — the Chinese-language Apple Daily, Next Magazine, Sharp Daily and Next TV — for NT$17.5 billion (US$600 million) to two consortiums comprised of Chinatrust Charity Foundation (中信慈善基金會) chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒), Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) chairman William Wong (王文淵), Want Want China Times Group (旺旺中時集團) chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), Lung Yen Life Service Corp (龍巖集團) chairman David Lee (李世聰) and Taiwan Fire & Marine Insurance Co (台灣產物保險) chairman Steve Lee (李泰宏).
The sale has raised fears of a media monopoly and undue influence from China on Taiwan’s media, in light of the investors’ major business operations across the Taiwan Strait. Critics of Tsai, Taiwan’s wealthiest person, who made his fortune in China, have accused him of interfering with editorial matters at his other media outlets.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
For some of the protesters, the journey to Taipei began as early as 3:30am yesterday, as they boarded buses and headed for the capital to express their concerns about the deal.
A large delegation from the south was welcomed by loud cheers as it joined other participants outside the building, which was locked down under heavy security and barbed wire.
Police officers asked for the ID of anyone seeking to enter the building.
Photo: J. Michael Cole, Taipei Times
In all, about 500 people, mostly university students, braved the damp weather as the meeting began at 9am. According to the organizers, the participants came from 36 universities nationwide.
Some had already taken part in two protests in front of the Executive Yuan earlier this week organized by the student group Youth Alliance Against Media Monsters, which also helped organize a much larger protest on Sept. 1 against the planned acquisition by Tsai of the cable TV services operated by China Network Systems (CNS, 中嘉網路).
In a display of fraternity, representatives from each academic institution were invited up on stage to display banners or placards with the name of their school inscribed on them and they were greeted by huge applause.
As student leaders and academics addressed the young crowd, it soon became clear that few had high expectations that the FTC, along with the National Communications Commission (NCC), the Investment Commission and the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) — the agencies that are to review the acquisition — would do a thorough job.
Alliance convener Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) said the demonstrators were asking the FTC to investigate the issue of horizontal and vertical media integration that would be caused by the deal, and to hold a legally binding hearing so that the review procedures would be transparent.
They are also demanding that the legislature enact an anti-media monopoly law as soon as possible, Lin said.
“We will give the FTC two weeks to prepare for and hold a hearing, and we demand that it reject the deal in a month,” Lin told the protesters.
Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), one of the student leaders, said the students had two serious concerns — that a media monopoly is taking shape while the government remains clueless and fails to deal with the issue, and the growing influence of China on Taiwanese media.
Representative from civic groups also voiced their concerns about the deal, with Taiwan Democracy Watch saying in a statement that the government should do whatever it takes to keep media outlets from falling into the hands of a select few.
Leung Man-to (梁文韜), a political scientist at National Cheng Kung University who supports the students’ cause, said the deal was neither a business nor a legal issue, but a political issue.
Leung said he fears a “purple terror” is descending on Taiwan, in reference to Beijing’s influence, because “when you mix red [which represents the Chinese Communist Party] and blue [the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)], you get purple.”
Several promising young film directors, including Yeh Tien-lun (葉天倫), Yang Ya-che (楊雅) and Cheng Yu-chieh (鄭有傑) also showed up to express their support for the students, as did Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, led by Pan Men-an (潘孟安), and People First Party (PFP) Legislator Thomas Lee (李桐豪).
In the afternoon, the demonstrators headed to the legislature, where they continued their protest as about 100 police officers equipped with riot shields looked on.
The legislative caucuses of the DPP, the Taiwan Solidarity Union and the PFP all signed letters of commitment pledging to do their best to block the deal and to work on an anti-media monopoly law.
The KMT caucus refused to attend the event and sign the letter, saying the students’ protest was illegal.
Unhappy with the KMT’s response, the students marched to the front gate of the legislature and asked the party to “come out and address the issue.”
Student organizers surprised everyone with what they described as a “call-out tactic.” They telephoned KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih’s (林鴻池) office and played the conversation on loudspeakers.
Li Shing-hong (李成康), a student leader in Hong Kong’s “anti-brainwash movement” earlier this year telephoned Lin, but the person who answered the telephone said that the caucus whip was in a meeting and could not take the call.
The students then folded the letters of commitment into paper planes and threw them into the grounds of the legislature.
Before the protest ended at about 3pm, the students pledged to return to the streets of the capital — possibly in front of the Presidential Office — if the government “keeps playing dead” on the deal.
The DPP caucus said it would propose suspending the deal until anti-media monopoly regulations are in place.
DPP headquarters reiterated the party’s opposition to the deal and pledged to “take all possible and necessary action” to block the merger, party spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said.
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
RELEASED: Ko emerged from a courthouse before about 700 supporters, describing his year in custody as a period of ‘suffering’ and vowed to ‘not surrender’ Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was released on NT$70 million (US$2.29 million) bail yesterday, bringing an end to his year-long incommunicado detention as he awaits trial on corruption charges. Under the conditions set by the Taipei District Court on Friday, Ko must remain at a registered address, wear a GPS-enabled ankle monitor and is prohibited from leaving the country. He is also barred from contacting codefendants or witnesses. After Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), posted bail, Ko was transported from the Taipei Detention Center to the Taipei District Court at 12:20pm, where he was fitted with the tracking
RSS