Long Lien Blockchain Media Technology Ltd (龍聯區塊鏈傳媒科技), which has come under scrutiny for recruiting former national security and intelligence officials, yesterday said that it is to become the first Taiwanese media company to operate in China.
The firm’s online content platform, Master Chain (大師鏈), which founder Chuang Li-ping (莊立平) in October last year said would use blockchain technology and present “opinions from all sides,” has received approval from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to start operations in Beijing in February, it told a news conference in Taipei.
The company would update its Taiwan and China Web sites concurrently, meaning that Taiwanese visitors would see CCP-sanctioned advertisements, it added.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Long Lien denied that it would receive funding from the CCP or help it disseminate propaganda, saying that advertisements would be nonpolitical and that it would only market goods like travel packages and food products.
The platform would not operate like a traditional media source, as it has no reporters, and would mostly focus on economic and cultural content, it said, adding that despite its nonpolitical nature, it needed the CCP’s approval to obtain an operating license in China.
Long Lien invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) and retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) — who is on the KMT’s list of legislator-at-large nominees for the Jan. 11 elections — to attend the news conference, but neither appeared.
However, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and former KMT secretary-general Lin Feng-cheng (林豐正) both attended.
Wu, who has come under fire for attending a 2016 speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing and standing for a rendition of the Chinese national anthem, was unable to attend the news conference due to previous arrangements, Long Lien said.
Lien praised Chuang for “leading an outstanding team that very quickly achieved its first success,” referring to Master Chain receiving CCP approval.
The platform would “promote and enrich Chinese culture for people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Lien said, adding that he hoped the group would “keep up with developments and present information accurately.”
If Long Lien is successful, then “cross-strait peace and the rejuvenation of China will not be such a distant dream,” he said.
The company is to have offices in Taipei and Beijing, each with 40 to 50 employees, Long Lien said, adding that it hoped Chinese worldwide would no longer need to read separate news sources for Taiwan and China.
Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council said that the company would need to apply with the Ministry of Economic Affairs for permission to invest in China, citing the Regulations Governing Investment or Technical Cooperation in the Mainland Area (在大陸地區從事投資或技術合作許可辦法).
The platform could run afoul of other regulations if it is found running advertisements of a political nature on behalf of the CCP, the council said, adding that it would closely monitor the situation.
Additional reporting by CNA
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
RSS