Taipei Times: Back in 1987, you and Hsu Lu (徐璐, vice president of the Chinese Television System) were the first two journalists from Taiwan allowed in to China. What was it like to be one of the pioneers of cross-strait journalistic exchanges?
Lee Yung-te (
That trip was pioneering and also risky, because both sides of the Strait had been out of contact for over 40 years, stigmatizing each other as much as they could due to political confrontation. People in Taiwan -- including us -- had limited access to accurate information on China.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
TT: Bearing that in mind, what shocked you the most when you actually landed in the once forbidden neighboring country?
Lee: Before we left for China, we had done a lot of preparation work and established several principles. One of them was that we would not get in touch with any Chinese officials. Why? Because we were there for the simple purpose of conducting interviews -- we did not want to be utilized as political propaganda tools.
The Chinese authorities had expressed their wishes to meet with us, but we turned them down because we would rather talk to ordinary people in the streets or in the markets. The public's daily life was our focus.
Generally speaking, my first impression of China was that their society was more open than we had anticipated. What I mean by being open was that people in China were not as dogmatic as we had imagined. They did not bow to political suppression all the time. Instead, what they emphasized was how their lives could be improved.
Most people were unafraid to express their discontent on the government's failure to control rising inflation.
Secondly, most Chinese people's conception of Taiwan at the time was that it was a country where people were so starved that banana peels were all they had to eat. However, at the same time, there was also the opposite conception, with some saying that [they had heard] Taiwan's economy was booming.
The misconceptions about China we had in the past were similar. We believed that Chinese people were living in hell. However, as we saw, that was not the case, even though China's economy wasn't doing too well then. What surprised me greatly was that a taxi driver made more money than a professor did at that time. Some people even told us that communism was gradually being shelved while society was instead embracing the idea of privatization and liberalization.
TT: Had your views on China had, therefore, changed?
Lee: As reporters, we got to go deep into Chinese society, even though there was some uncertainty. Frankly, we were really amazed to see numerous modern buildings, highways and infrastructure construction underway in Beijing. Seeing some Chinese cities such as Beijing that were developing quickly broadened our view of China.
TT: Your trip attracted a lot of media attention. Your role as a reporter led to a new role in which you were frequently the subject of interviews. How did you find that role reversal? Was it interesting or a difficult adjustment?
Lee: Since it was the first cross-strait contact by the private sector, the media had certainly shown great interest and been curious about our trip. We were often asked to comment on our first impressions of China, on our perspectives on China and even on cross-strait issues.
We felt the pressure when we applied in Tokyo for permission to enter China and we tried to adjust to our new roles. But the pressure was nothing compared to the pressure of political control from top-ranking Chinese officials. Some Chinese "reporters" that their government had selected to accompany us were not actually journalists, but spies who were sent to observe our trip. We detected the signs [of this] and voiced our protest in public.
TT: How did they react to your protest?Lee: They denied it. That denial was expected, but we did find clues. For example, we had an interview with Fang Lizhi (方勵之), [a physicist who fled to the US in 1989 after his involvement in the June 4 Tiananmen Square democracy movement] who was still in Beijing at that time. We ran into all kinds of difficulties trying to contact him before we finally reached him. Anyway, on our way to Fan's place that day, the moment we hopped in a taxi, we noticed that a car seemed to be following us, though we were not completely sure. So, when we were almost there, we decided not to turn the corner to Fan's place and, instead, we headed for the opposition direction by making a U-turn. The car behind us hit the brakes almost simultaneously. That was enough proof for us.
Then, after Fan let us into his house, we found that car had parked not far from us. The next day, we reported our findings to the Chinese News Service (
TT: Nevertheless, you were allowed to cover news in China some 14 years ago while Taiwan only allowed reporters from China to enter recently. Do you find Taiwan's policy toward cross-strait news exchanges to be conservative?
Lee: Not exactly. As far as I know, China has not completely lifted the ban yet and only recently allowed reporters from Taiwan to be based in China. Our trip then was an exceptional case. It was finalized and directly approved by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) since other Chinese officials were suspicious of what we really wanted to do there. This was a perfect example of a lack of mutual trust across the strait. So I think both sides were about the same in this regard.
However, I agree that more non-political exchanges should be promoted including cultural and news exchanges to enhance mutual understanding.
TT: Finally, as a pioneer in the field of cross-strait news exchanges, what advice do you have for the two visiting journalists from China before they complete their stay in Taiwan and go back to China?
Lee: Taiwan has become a very diversified country, and therefore has generated quite a little democratic fracas, which may not necessarily be a bad thing. I hope they can closely observe it with patience and tolerance before they reach their conclusions, because Taiwan's democracy is sometimes unimaginable to Chinese.
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