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.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
A former soldier and an active-duty army officer were yesterday indicted for allegedly selling classified military training materials to a Chinese intelligence operative for a total of NT$79,440. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Chen Tai-yin (陳泰尹) and Lee Chun-ta (李俊達) for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例). Chen left the military in September 2013 after serving alongside then-staff sergeant Lee, now an army lieutenant, at the 21st Artillery Command of the army’s Sixth Corps from 2011 to 2013, according to the indictment. Chen met a Chinese intelligence operative identified as “Wang” (王) through a friend in November
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
The Grand Hotel Taipei has rejected media reports claiming that the hotel had prevented CBS from broadcasting coverage of the Beijing summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on its premises. Media reports alleging that the hotel owner, dissatisfied with CBS’s coverage, prohibited the network from broadcasting political content on the hotel premises, are not true, the hotel said in a statement issued last night. The reports were “inconsistent with how the hotel actually handled the matter,” it said. The hotel said it received a refund request from a
RSS