The South China Morning Post (SCMP) yesterday denied a story that it intended to launch a bi-lingual newspaper in Taiwan.
In a story by Deutsche Presse-Agentur that ran on the front page of yesterday’s Taipei Times, DPA quoted the Chinese-language Economic Daily News as reporting the paper would be launched in response to the increasing ties between Taiwan and China.
The report said the operations of the new publication would be funded from Hong Kong, a Taiwanese bank and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members.
The story, however, was refuted by the SCMP, which in an e-mail to the Taipei Times said, “SCMP Group Limited would like to clarify that there is no truth to recently published reports that the South China Morning Post plans to launch a new publication, either in print or online, in Taiwan.”
“The SCMP Group has not appointed anyone to conduct business or negotiate on its behalf with respect to launching a new venture in Taiwan,” the statement said.
In an indication of how seriously the paper took the story, the SCMP said it reserved the right to take legal action against anyone claiming to represent the newspaper.
The Economic Daily News reporter behind the story told the Taipei Times yesterday that he got the story from an economic expert who said he had been invited to become a consultant at the SCMP’s office in Taipei by someone who later turned out to be a fraudster.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JERRY LIN
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