The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday reiterated its opposition to a Want Want China Times Group merger and called for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to handle the deal appropriately.
“The DPP, which has always advocated the freedom of the press and social justice, calls for the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] to express its position on the case and for Ma to handle the case with care,” DPP spokesperson Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) told a press conference.
The conditional approval of a NT$76 billion (US$2.52 billion) deal allowing Want Want China Times Group to acquire cable television service provider China Network Systems (CNS) has drawn widespread criticism over fears a media monopoly could be created.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Citing reports of international media, including the BBC, The Associate Press and the UK-based Financial Times, Wang said the deal was now in the international spotlight with various media outlets having reported on Want Want China Times Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng’s (蔡衍明) pro-China position, China’s increasing influence on Taiwanese media and the self-censorship of local media on Beijing’s rights violations and corruption.
Despite strong opposition against the deal from academics and civic groups, members of the National Communications Commission (NCC) still approved the deal with less than one week left on their terms on the commission, Wang said, adding that what was even more incredible was that Want Want Group then reneged on the details of the deal less than 24 hours after the deal was approved.
Hung Chih-kun (洪智坤), a member of the DPP’s Central Executive Committee, yesterday launched a boycott of the media conglomerate following a concerted attack by the group’s electronic and print media outlets on those who have publicly voiced opposition to the merger, including Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), a researcher at Academia Sinica.
The group’s vicious attack is no different to the kind of thing thugs would do, Hung said, adding that he was launching a boycott of politicians, writers and academics to refuse to write for the media group or to be interviewed or quoted by the its media operations.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift