The Tainan District Court on Tuesday cleared three members of the Taiwan People’s Communist Party who last year put a mask designed to look like the Chinese flag on a statue of Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta in a public park, before making inflammatory statements. The ruling by the Tainan judge is an example of inconsistent application of the law.
In a video they filmed and uploaded, the three men implied that COVID-19 oginated in either the US or Japan. Such a statement could be considered dissemination of disinformation, which would be an actionable offense. The men also told Japanese in Taiwan to “go home.” The judge said the men’s speech and actions “did not contain extreme hatred or incite crime,” but it would not be a stretch to argue that telling foreigners residing in Taiwan to go “home” is hate speech.
Taiwan does not have laws regulating hate speech like those in Canada or other countries, but the absence of such laws is demonstrative of the inconsistencies in the country’s legal system, which does recognize public defamation of an individual as a criminal offense. In other words, in Taiwan it is illegal to publicly insult an individual on the basis of them being Japanese, but it is not illegal to insult all Japanese as a group. If the aim of the law is to protect a person’s reputation and honor, how can they be protected when the group that the individual is part of can be attacked?
The men also publicly displayed a Chinese flag and said that Taiwan is “part of China.” While that would not constitute an offense in most countries with free speech, Taiwanese legislators have been calling for amending laws to prohibit displaying China’s flag publicly. On April 20 last year, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) and 29 other lawmakers proposed amending the National Security Act (國家安全法) to ban actions that damage national identity or work in favor of a hostile foreign power — which would include displaying China’s flag.
On Feb. 18, the Tainan City Government demolished a building owned by the Taiwan People’s Communist Party that had displayed the Chinese flag. Officials said the building was torn down because it was illegally constructed on farmland. However, the innumerable structures built on farmland nationwide that remain standing suggest that the Chinese flag displayed prominently on the building might have been the real motivation behind tearing it down.
It is clear from the inconsistent actions of authorities in response to pro-China forces in Taiwan that it is unsure how to walk the fine line between protecting democratic rights and tackling what it perceives as national security threats. Few would argue that putting a mask adorned with a Chinese flag on a statue constitutes a threat to the nation, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rarely takes large actions — its strategy is usually to work within the “gray zone,” making small incursions that frustrate its adversaries and test limits.
Last month, national security forces investigated a Taiwanese-founded media production company that was allegedly helping the CCP produce propaganda. If videos espousing unification, distributed through an obscure YouTube channel that most Taiwanese are unlikely to see or hear about are considered a threat to the nation, why is the same not true of people standing in a public park telling passersby that Taiwan is part of China?
Cross-party lawmakers must seriously discuss what speech or actions are to be considered national security threats, which are to be considered harmful to the well-being of those residing in Taiwan, and what actions should be taken in response to such speech or actions.
If there is an inconsistent response by authorities, then there will be rifts in society, and the CCP will take advantage of that inconsistency to wreak havoc in Taiwan.
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