The shutdown of CTi News (中天新聞), after its license expires tomorrow, would have a detrimental effect on people’s trust in the government, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said in Taipei yesterday.
“Our government is still unaware that doing so will not only shut down a single media outlet, but also shut down the people’s trust in the government and shut down Taiwan’s democratic value of diverse voices,” Chiang told a weekly meeting of the KMT Central Standing Committee.
“As the ruling party during the nation’s authoritarian period, the Chinese Nationalist Party is still often criticized and blamed,” he said, adding that criticism of the party has come with “misunderstandings and distortions.”
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
However, the course of Taiwan’s democracy “although slow and arduous, has never regressed,” he said.
With control of the government and the Legislative Yuan, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has “directed a scalpel at the license renewal application of the news channel most opposed to its position and that most dares to criticize the government,” Chiang said.
“This will make the course of democracy in Taiwanese society not only stop, but regress,” he added.
Quoting an 1835 statement by French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, Chiang said: “In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it engenders.”
“When our government lists the reasons for not renewing the license [of CTi News], it is completely forgetting the profound influence and impact that shutting down a news channel will have on freedom of the press [in Taiwan],” he said.
“Between the government and the media, like US founding father [Thomas] Jefferson, we choose to stand with the media without hesitation,” he said.
On the issue of the government’s decision to allow traces of the animal feed additive ractopamine in imported pork from Jan. 1, Chiang said that the KMT does not rule out another protest.
In the face of what he described as the DPP’s “winner-takes-all” attitude, Chiang said that in addition to making its voice heard in the Legislative Yuan, the KMT does not rule out “taking to the streets again.”
The KMT and its supporters were part of the “Autumn Struggle” protest in Taipei on Nov. 22, which saw tens of thousands of people march against the government’s plan to allow the importation of pork containing traces of ractopamine, among other issues.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chiang are scheduled to appear at a KMT news conference in Taipei tomorrow, titled “Safeguard Press Freedom, Hold Government Accountable,” on the issue of the National Communications Commission’s denial of CTi News’ license renewal, the KMT said yesterday.
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