As the result of a resolution by the Government Information Office's (GIO) broadcasting license review committee, the operations of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-run China Television Company (CTV) and Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) have been thrown into a crisis. CTV has obtained a temporary license, and BCC is still awaiting a second assessment [of its license extension application]. The difficult question of how to resolve this situation has become the main concern of both these party-run enterprises.
Finding itself in this difficult situation, I imagine that the KMT is feeling wronged, thinking that the regulations stipulating the withdrawal of party, government and military from the television and broadcast media offers a two-year grace period, and that there really is no reason for the GIO to apply too much pressure before these two years are up. In addition, the GIO has not been very aggressive in dealing with the abuses of underground radio stations, and the DPP government has rewarded Chiang Hsia (
If the KMT really is holding these grudges and is angry over the unfairness of its treatment by the DPP government, and now wants to try to play on these feelings to win public support by blaming the GIO and the government, I can but sigh and wonder why these two parties always are using the media issue to show how much worse the other party is, instead of trying to show how good they themselves are. In a situation where the GIO has the law on its side, the KMT really should give some deep thought to how it should go about winning public support, instead of criticizing the DPP government in an endless war of words.
Prior to the presidential election, I offered a public suggestion to the KMT that its candidate Lien Chan (
If Chen had disagreed, the two parties would keep their media outlets, but the KMT would also gain the initiative in the media debate. No matter how you look at it, the KMT would only stand to gain.
Maybe the KMT at the time thought these simply were the narrow views of some egghead scholar, and so the party took no action. With the election over, however, the KMT seems to be losing in every aspect of the media debate, and so I wonder what the enlightened people in the KMT think about my suggestion now.
Although the KMT-run CTV and BCC are now on the chopping block, they still have a chance to expand their attack by taking this opportunity to make concessions to gain further advantages. My suggestion is that the KMT immediately reorganize the CTV and BCC boards of directors, or set up independent management committees, from which they withdraw all KMT members.
And not only that: they should also invite just and neutral experts acceptable to all circles of society to serve as directors and supervisors, and maybe even to take up top-level management positions. This would show the people of Taiwan the KMT's determination to immediately pull out of the television and broadcast media, and would win public support for the KMT. It would also give them ammunition to attack the DPP government by highlighting the government's mistake in rewarding people who helped in the presidential election campaign by appointing them to positions with control over media outlets.
Given the fact that the GIO currently is holding the upper hand, I believe this is the only strategy that would offer the KMT the opportunity to move from defense to attack. However, if the KMT fails to take advantage of this opportunity and instead continues its war of words, I can think of no further line of action and would have no choice but to continue to support the GIO's immediate cancelation of all CTV's and part of BCC's frequency licenses. After all, it would mean that the KMT itself is giving up any and all opportunities to legitimately hold on to CTV and BCC.
Chen Ping-hung is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Mass Communication at National Taiwan Normal University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS