The Taiwanese subsidiary of China-based online video streaming service iQIYI has been accused of refusing to air a Taiwanese series for containing discussions related to Taiwanese independence and footage of the Sunflower movement.
The movement provides the background for the miniseries Days We Stared at the Sun II (他們在畢業的前一天爆炸2), directed by Cheng Yu-chieh (鄭有傑) and funded by the Taiwanese Public Television Service (PTS).
The series is also broadcast online by Line TV, iQIYI Taiwan and KKTV streaming services.
The Chinese streaming service broadcast the first episode without censorship, but it did not broadcast the second episode, which aired on PTS on Saturday.
Many people said that iQIYI Taiwan’s refusal to air the episode might have something to do with dialogue that could draw Beijing’s ire.
In one scene, the character of Chinese student Huang Chien (黃茜), who covers the Sunflower movement as a student reporter, asks a Taiwanese student if he identifies himself as Chinese. In response, the student says that he is Taiwanese.
In another scene, protesters urge police to protest as well, saying they would be part of the Chinese Public Security Bureau if they did not.
iQIYI Taiwan said in a statement that it made an adjustment in its programming as part of its strategy to differentiate itself from other online platforms.
It said that it has reached an agreement with PTS to replace the series with Lion Dance, another PTS-funded drama.
Lion Dance was adapted from the story of the Hong Sheng Lion Dance Troupe’s founder Chang Yuan-rong (張遠榮). It is PTS’ first series filmed in 4K high-definition.
However, an academic said anything related to the Sunflower movement would be considered a sensitive topic by Beijing.
“The Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign in 2014 and the advocacy for Hong Kong independence emerged due to or were bolstered by the Sunflower movement,” said Fan Shi-ping (范世平), professor at the Graduate Institute of Political Science at National Taiwan Normal University.
The Sunflower movement refers to student-led protests that began on March 18, 2014, in which students occupied the legislative chamber for almost 23 days to protest a trade in services agreement with China and how it was handled by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods