Newsmakers: Chin Heng-wei won't be intimidated

Rather than bow to pressure, Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒) took to TV talk shows after being violently attacked on March 8 for his pro-independence views.

Chin, a political observer and editor in chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine, was attacked by a man thought to be in his 60s, whom Chin said may have been a military veteran, while on his way home with his wife.

On Wednesday, KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) accused Chin of manipulating the media on behalf of the DPP administration.

"The KMT wants to block me from taking part in talk shows. To thwart this attack, I am accepting all invitations from the media," Chin said.

"I don't deserve a political party using its all force to attack me," he said, adding that the KMT's attacks served to upgrade his status.

"Accusing me of being a manipulator on behalf of the DPP is just a pathetic gimmick that the KMT has played to combat intellectuals in Taiwan," he said.

Reacting to the two incidents, Chin reiterated that he has no reason to compromise, especially since he has fought for freedom of speech since the martial law era.

In 1983, Chin, as editor of the China Times, challenged the authorities by publishing controversial social criticism, including Lung Ying-tai's (龍應台) Wild Fire (野火集).

Lung is a former director of the Taipei City Government's Cultural Affairs Bureau.

Many social historians now mark Wild Fire as one of the starting points of the cascade of events that transformed Taiwan into one of the most democratic countries in Asia.

"Without the China Times insistence, there would have been no Wild Fires," Lung said.

"Chin asked me to write freely and not to consider the [pressure from] Taiwan Garrison Command. He always said that he would take care of the censorship issue," she said, adding that her father once had nightmares about her columns.

Ironically, Chin was replaced by the China Times due to pressure from the Taiwan Garrison Command.

In June 1986, Chin founded Contemporary Monthly, which is considered one of Taiwan's few liberal and intellectual magazines.

The magazine has published stories on issues such as Marxism, literature, film, history, liberalism and the environment in its 187 editions.

As a political observer, Chin has written columns for Liberty Times and the Taiwan Daily News since 1988.

"He is one of the few people capable of writing a good column everyday. Aside from that, he even has time to attend TV call-in shows," said Lu Shih-xiang (盧世祥), founder of the Foundation for the Prevention of Public Damage by the Media (新聞公害防治基金會) and a retired editor in chief of the Eco-nomic Daily News. Lu has known Chin since the 1980s.

Chin, whose ancestors came from Zheijiang Province in China, has been one of the few mainlanders to publicly support Taiwan independence, through his columns and his appearances on TV call-in shows.

Chang Mau-kuei (張茂桂), a researcher at the Institute of Sociology at Academia Sinica, said that supporting Taiwan independence is "a lonely route" for a mainlander.

Chang said Chin's ethnicity would make it difficult for him to mix with Taiwan independence supporters, while his beliefs also alienate him from most mainlanders.

Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), a professor of sociology at National Chengchi University, chairman of the Taipei Society and an editorial adviser to Contemporary Monthly, said that Chin is one of the country's few political observers who insists on his belief in democracy and freedom of speech.