Taiwan should increase efforts to foster creativity and boost the nation’s soft power in the face of China’s rapid development in the arts sphere, Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) said yesterday, urging the government to recognize China’s strength in this regard amid a recent frenzy over a Chinese TV show.
The show, I Am A Singer (我是歌手), is a Hunan TV contest featuring professional singers including well-known Taiwanese artists, such as Terry Lin (林志炫) and Aska Yang (楊宗緯).
It has become one of the most talked-about TV shows in China and created a media frenzy in Taiwan as Lin, Yang and several other Taiwanese singers boosted their popularity after appearing on the show.
Several TV stations in Taiwan replaced news and political talk shows on Friday night with a live broadcast of the show’s first season finale, prompting debate over whether the show was getting too much airtime in Taiwan.
In response to media questions about I Am A Singer’s popularity, Lung said that while it demonstrated China’s huge investment in pop culture shows and show business talent, it also reflected the strength of Taiwanese singers in terms of performance and songwriting skills.
“Many Chinese singers picked songs written by Taiwanese songwriters, so the show tells us that Taiwan is ahead of China and the Chinese community in culture and creativity,” she said on the sidelines of an event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Taipei Story House.
“What we should be concerned about is whether we will still be the best in 30 years,” Lung said.
She said the ministry will reinforce its efforts to create a better environment for local artists, and help local singers and musicians to shine on the international stage.
She also said the signing of a cross-strait agreement on intellectual property rights cooperation and protection during the fifth round of negotiations on the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) is crucial because the fruit of local artists’ creativity should be protected, and the ministry will work with artists to increase the economic value of their intellectual property.
“We cannot compete with China in terms of capital investment. We should think about how to maintain our competitiveness via other policies,” she said.
The National Communications Commission, for example, relaxed regulations on placement marketing last year to allow product placement and the sponsorship of TV programs, except for news and children’s shows.
The commission expected the measure to stimulate investment in local productions and market Taiwan’s TV content both domestically and overseas. Lung said the government should assess the limitation and relaxation of product placement policies so that local TV programs can improve their content.
As for local TV stations’ saturation coverage of I Am A Singer, Lung said the issue should be addressed by the commission, the authority responsible for managing television stations.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying