`Times' hosts media group

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) told a high-level US media delegation that although Taiwan is the 14th largest trading nation and seventh-largest trading partner of the US, China inhibits it from enjoying the dignity of a sovereign nation.

"When you arrive in Hong Kong and Beijing, you can compare them to Taipei and see for yourselves the huge differences between the three places in terms of democratic development," said the president.

The delegation, from the National Newspaper Association (NNA), is visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Government Information Office.

The president stressed that the long-term friendship between Taiwan and the US is based on both countries' belief in freedom, democracy and human rights and their hope for the peace and stability across the Strait. And increasingly inter-dependent economic and trade relations further underscored the common interests between the two, he siad.

"Since President George W. Bush took office, ties between Taipei and Washington are better than they have been at any time in the last 30 years. I am convinced that this is because both countries have established a very close democratic alliance, so the US is willing to provide the necessary safeguards to Taiwan's democracy, and Taiwan is also committed to playing a faithful role in maintaining international order in the Taiwan Strait," the president said.

After visiting the Presidential Office, the 33-member delegation composed of senior newspaper publishers, journalists and media executives and led by its president, Kenneth Rhoades, an executive from the nine-newspaper Enterprise Publishing group, paid a visit to the Liberty Times Group in order to gain an understanding of the current situation of Taiwan's newspaper industry.

The delegation was particularly interested in how the Liberty Times managed to have a fivefold-growth in circulation in a decade and how the Taipei Times, the Liberty Times' sister newspaper, was able to come to the forefront and become the top English-language newspaper in Taiwan just three years after its launch.

"The Liberty Times' daily circulation is over 1.2 million, the largest in Taiwan," Chen Chin-jung (陳進榮), the editor-in-chief of the Liberty Times, told the delegation in the Q&A session.

"It's very evenly distributed in terms of geography, from northern Taiwan down to southern Taiwan. And retail circulation and the subscription circulation are also very evenly distributed. People from all walks of life, from the president and members of the legislature to street vendors, all read this paper as their primary and authoritative source of information about Taiwan," he said.

President of the Taipei Times Dr. Lee Chang-kuei (李長貴), in answering a delegate's question, said that "the press industry has been hard hit by Taiwan's economic downturn over the last two years and the Taipei Times is no exception. But we are confident that we will overcome the challenges soon enough."

Established in 1885, the NNA is a not-for-profit trade association representing the owners, publishers and editors of America's community newspapers. NNA's mission is to protect, promote and enhance America's community newspapers. Today, NNA's 3,200 members make it the largest newspaper association in the US.