Political polarization, self-censorship and indirect Chinese influence limit the diversity of opinions represented in Taiwan’s mainstream media, according to a new report from the US-based watchdog Freedom House.
The report, Freedom of the Press 2013, was released in Washington on Wednesday and generally gave Taiwan a high rating, but said that the legal environment had become slightly more restrictive over the past year.
“Taiwan’s media environment is one of the freest in Asia, with a vigorous and diverse press that reports aggressively on government policies and alleged official wrongdoing,” the report said.
However, during elections in January last year, observers noted the strong party affiliations of media outlets as evidenced by their preferential treatment of candidates, the report said.
“Attempts by tycoons with significant business interests in Taiwan and China to gain greater control of the media market during the year sparked protests from students, journalists and social activists who were concerned that press pluralism was gravely under threat,” the report said.
Nevertheless, Taiwan was judged to have a “free” press with an overall “freedom score” of 26 points, just one point less free than the previous year.
By way of comparison, Hong Kong was said to have only a “partly free” press, with Beijing’s interference intensifying.
China was said to have a “not free” press and to be home to “the world’s most sophisticated censorship apparatus.”
Of the 197 countries and territories assessed, a total of 63 (32 percent) were rated “free,” while 70 (36 percent) were rated “partly free” and 64 (32 percent) were rated “not free.”
The analysis found that less than 14 percent of the world’s inhabitants lived in countries with a free press, while 43 percent had a partly free press and 43 percent did not enjoy a free press.
Norway and Sweden were judged to have the world’s freest press, with Taiwan sharing 47th place with four other countries.
In a commentary on the report, Radio Free Asia said that it was “especially troubling” that there had been a noticeable decline in Hong Kong’s media environment, “which may be interpreted as a distressing indicator of things to come.”
Freedom House said when releasing the report that the percentage of the world’s population living in societies with a fully free press had fallen to its lowest in over a decade.
Reasons for the decline included the increasingly sophisticated repression of independent journalism and new media by authoritarian regimes, radical Islamists and organized crime groups.
“The overall decline is also a disturbing indicator of the state of democracy globally, and underlines the critical need for vigilance in promoting and protecting independent journalism,” Freedom House president David Kramer said.
The world’s eight worst-rated countries were Belarus, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
In these countries, citizens’ access to unbiased information was said to be severely limited and dissent was crushed through imprisonment, torture and other forms of repression.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS