A TV show featuring and produced by Taiwanese actress Ruby Lin (林心如) is again being streamed on a Chinese online video platform and other streaming services after being pulled at the end of last month amid claims that it had received “pro-independence sponsorship.”
My Dear Boy (我的男孩) was pulled from broadcast in Guangdong Province on Dec. 31 over a NT$20 million (US$676,544) subsidy the producers received from the Ministry of Culture.
Lin’s studio on Jan. 7 issued a statement saying that rumors about her supporting independence were “malicious lies and are causing serious damage to her reputation.”
“Ms Ruby Lin has never supported and will never support any pro-independence discourses or actions,” the statement added.
The state-owned Global Times tabloid yesterday quoted an anonymous Chinese official as saying that My Dear Boy did not involve elements of Taiwanese independence.
The show does not features artists who support Taiwanese independence or include any pro-independence content, the paper quoted the official as saying.
The sponsorship program has been in place since former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration and is meant to promote Taiwanese culture, which is a part of Chinese culture, the official said.
Attempts to censor the show and out Lin might have inadvertently allowed Taiwanese independence supporters to get what they want, the official added.
The Global Times said Lin had “cleansed her reputation.”
Asked about Beijing’s follow-up measures regarding the show, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) told a news conference on Wednesday: “We have noticed the incident and believe authorities will objectively evaluate the situation and carry out the appropriate measures.”
My Dear Boy is about a love affair between a successful career woman and a university student.
Additional reporting by CNA
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods