The Taiwan Association of University Professors yesterday urged government agencies and state-owned enterprises to cancel their subscriptions to the Chinese-language China Times following allegations that the newspaper takes instructions from Beijing on how to prepare its news.
News presented from a China-centric perspective could pose a threat to Taiwanese society, yet the government has done little to address the issue, association president Lai Cheng-chang (賴振昌) told a news conference in Taipei.
“We do not want fake news from pro-China media outlets,” he said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Following a report by London-based Financial Times earlier this month that the China Times takes orders on a daily basis from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, the association looked into which government agencies and state-owned enterprises — from motor vehicle offices and post offices to the Bank of Taiwan and Chunghwa Telecom — subscribed to the newspaper, he said.
“A copy of the China Times was found in almost every one of them,” he said.
Food safety laws have been amended multiple times to protect people’s health and the government should take a similar approach to manage the media, National Taiwan University biochemical science and technology professor Huang Ching-jang (黃青真) said.
“Media outlets produce food for the mind and the government should have standards and management procedures for preventing that food from being poisoned,” she said.
National Taiwan Normal University Chinese associate professor Edwin Yang (楊聰榮) urged the government to adopt the idea of a “defensive democracy” and take action to address Beijing’s infiltration of Taiwanese media.
In Australia, Chinese infiltration is already being studied, he said, giving as an example the book Silent Invasion: How China is Turning Australia Into a Puppet State, which was published last year, adding that the Australian government has taken countermeasures.
That government agents and state-owned enterprises are widely subscribed to the China Times presents a serious issue, Taiwan Brain Trust member Chang Jen-chieh (張人傑) said.
It is unclear why they think that members of the public should read the newspaper, he added.
After the Financial Times’ report, Want Want China Times Media Group — which owns the China Times — said that it would file defamation lawsuits against the newspaper and other media companies that cited the report, said attorney Chen Yu-fan (陳雨凡), who is to compete for a legislative seat in the Xinyi-Southern Songshan district representing the New Power Party in next year’s elections.
The lawsuit could cause other media outlets to refrain from criticizing the group for fear of retaliation, she said.
Hopefully, the Legislative Yuan would pass a bill requiring individuals and organizations controlled by foreign governments or organizations to disclose such connections in the next legislative session, she added.
921 EARTHQUAKE: The magnitude 7.3 quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged The Central Weather Bureau yesterday received about 50,000 views on Facebook after it posted the data that it collected on Sept. 21, 1999, when the nation was devastated by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. The data showed that the 921 Earthquake hit the nation at 1:47am, with the epicenter being 7km southwest of the bureau’s quake detection center in Nantou County’s Yuchi Township (魚池) at a depth of 8km. The quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged, with the cost of the damage estimated at NT$300 billion (US$10.8 billion at the current
British newspaper The Mail on Sunday reported that Prince Charles met with Bruno Wang (汪家興), a Taiwanese fugitive who describes himself as a Chinese philanthropist and donated ￡500,000 (US$683,522) to the prince’s charity, the Prince’s Foundation. The newspaper reported that Wang is wanted in Taiwan on charges related to money laundering and being a fugitive from justice, allegations he denies, and drew comparisons between Wang and the Russian banker Dmitry Leus. Investigation and cooperation with foreign authorities have found that Bruno Wang’s father, Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), had stashed proceeds from a scandal involving the procurement of Lafayette frigates in 61 bank accounts,
AT ODDS: The KMT called on the government to seek bilateral dialogue with Beijing to resolve the issue that led to the ban on custard apple and wax apple imports Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials and lawmakers yesterday condemned China’s sudden ban on imports of custard apples and wax apples from Taiwan as “obvious political retaliation,” while the opposition called for a scientific investigation into Beijing’s claim to have found pests in imports of the fruits. China earlier yesterday announced a ban on the importation of the two fruits from today, citing repeated discoveries of Planococcus minor, a type of mealybug. The announcement follows a similar ban on Taiwanese pineapples imposed in February. At least Beijing gave a few days’ notice when it banned pineapple imports, an unnamed government official said yesterday. This time
BY OTHER MEANS: China could see CPTPP membership as a means of circumventing trade restrictions imposed by the US, amid an ongoing trade dispute between them The US could invoke a clause in its trade agreement with Canada and Mexico to block China’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a government official said yesterday. Under Article 32.10 of the Exceptions and General Provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), if either Canada or Mexico enter a free-trade agreement with a nonmarket economy — such as China — the US could withdraw from the agreement. “If that clause applies to multilateral free-trade agreements such as the CPTPP — which Mexico and Canada are members of — that might be cause for the two
RSS