China has intensified its “united front” campaign to influence Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 11, mainly by using media executives and journalists as its agents, experts said at a forum in Taipei yesterday.
Taking advantage of the freedom of the press in Taiwan, Beijing has been targeting local media outlets and university students for its campaign, Nanhua University professor of international relations Sun Kuo-hsiang (孫國祥) said.
“The Chinese government has organized many conferences and junket trips, inviting media personnel from Taiwan for ‘exchanges’ with their counterparts in China,” Sun said, citing as an example the Cross-Strait Media Summit in Beijing in May, which was attended by more than 70 Taiwanese media executives and senior journalists.
Some Taiwanese journalists have become Beijing’s puppets and mouthpieces, presenting biased reports to push the Taiwanese public to accept the “one country, two systems” framework, he said.
Taiwan should follow the US in enacting a “Foreign Agents Registration Act,” which required China’s Xinhua news agency and China Global Television Network in Washington to register as lobbyists acting on behalf of a foreign government and disclose their funding and expenditure, Prospect Foundation executive director Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) said.
There are many levels in the Chinese government for undertaking these “united front” works in Taiwan, including the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office and the United Front Work Department, both of which fall under the purview of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee, as well as the CCP Publicity Department and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, participants at the forum said.
Chinese government departments and party organs have infiltrated all social sectors in Taiwan to try to influence the elections, offering low-cost trips to China to attract young Taiwanese, religious groups, Aboriginal leaders and representatives, and borough wardens and village chiefs, they said.
The two-day forum was organized by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
RSS