Journalist remembers first cross-strait trip

Lee: Since it was the first cross-strait contact by the private sector, the media had certainly shown great interest and been curious about our trip. We were often asked to comment on our first impressions of China, on our perspectives on China and even on cross-strait issues.

We felt the pressure when we applied in Tokyo for permission to enter China and we tried to adjust to our new roles. But the pressure was nothing compared to the pressure of political control from top-ranking Chinese officials. Some Chinese "reporters" that their government had selected to accompany us were not actually journalists, but spies who were sent to observe our trip. We detected the signs [of this] and voiced our protest in public.

TT: How did they react to your protest?Lee: They denied it. That denial was expected, but we did find clues. For example, we had an interview with Fang Lizhi (方勵之), [a physicist who fled to the US in 1989 after his involvement in the June 4 Tiananmen Square democracy movement] who was still in Beijing at that time. We ran into all kinds of difficulties trying to contact him before we finally reached him. Anyway, on our way to Fan's place that day, the moment we hopped in a taxi, we noticed that a car seemed to be following us, though we were not completely sure. So, when we were almost there, we decided not to turn the corner to Fan's place and, instead, we headed for the opposition direction by making a U-turn. The car behind us hit the brakes almost simultaneously. That was enough proof for us.

Then, after Fan let us into his house, we found that car had parked not far from us. The next day, we reported our findings to the Chinese News Service (中國新聞社), which was in charge of handling our affairs and they did not deny it this time. Instead they said they had been following us wherever we went because they had been informed that some secret agents had been attempting to assassinate us, so they had sent people to protect us.

TT: Nevertheless, you were allowed to cover news in China some 14 years ago while Taiwan only allowed reporters from China to enter recently. Do you find Taiwan's policy toward cross-strait news exchanges to be conservative?

Lee: Not exactly. As far as I know, China has not completely lifted the ban yet and only recently allowed reporters from Taiwan to be based in China. Our trip then was an exceptional case. It was finalized and directly approved by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) since other Chinese officials were suspicious of what we really wanted to do there. This was a perfect example of a lack of mutual trust across the strait. So I think both sides were about the same in this regard.

However, I agree that more non-political exchanges should be promoted including cultural and news exchanges to enhance mutual understanding.

TT: Finally, as a pioneer in the field of cross-strait news exchanges, what advice do you have for the two visiting journalists from China before they complete their stay in Taiwan and go back to China?

Lee: Taiwan has become a very diversified country, and therefore has generated quite a little democratic fracas, which may not necessarily be a bad thing. I hope they can closely observe it with patience and tolerance before they reach their conclusions, because Taiwan's democracy is sometimes unimaginable to Chinese.