Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) yesterday clashed with National Security Bureau Deputy Director-General Chen Wen-fan (陳文凡) over whether China is spreading fake news in Taiwan.
The exchange occurred during Chen’s report to the Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee, which had asked the National Security Bureau to brief lawmakers on its use of budgetary items listed as “monitoring communications” and “telecom operations.”
At his turn to question Chen, Lai said: “Is it true that China is somehow influencing Taiwanese public debate?”
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
When Chen said: “Beyond a doubt,” Lai said: “You are calling Taiwanese idiots by saying this. Is there any evidence?”
Chen said a Nov. 8 story claiming that the US had annexed Itu Aba (Taiping Island, 太平島) at President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) invitation and that Beijing had declared war was believed to have been manufactured by China.
Lai then asked Chen whether the bureau keeps tabs on people who criticize Tsai, which Chen denied.
Allowing the government to decide what is fake news endangers free speech, Lai said, adding that the National Communications Commission uses its licensing authority to harass the media.
He then said: “What is the standard for calling something fake news? Who decides?”
“That which is untrue is false,” Chen said. “The appropriate authorities make such determinations according to the only standard there is: reality.”
Later, KMT Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) asked whether the National Security Bureau monitors Facebook, which Chen denied.
“The bureau is focused on China and other foreign hostile forces, and the scope of operations is limited to reviewing publicly available information on public media,” Chen said. “We make no judgement and conduct no surveillance on Facebook.”
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS