The Ministry of Culture might propose an amendment to regulate publications released by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) before they can enter the Taiwanese market, Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) said yesterday.
Lee was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee.
The proposed revision pertains to Article 37 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), he said.
ENFORCEMENT ISSUE
At present, the law stipulates that any publication, video or radio or television program from China can be imported to Taiwan to be sold and distributed with the permission of the government.
However, the law has not been strongly enforced, and the ministry wants to revise it to emphasize enforcement, focusing particularly on regulating CCP and PLA publications, he said.
CCP publications are “propaganda material” rather than “books,” he added.
Such publications need to be reviewed and approved before they can be imported to Taiwan, Lee said.
Critics argue that such a move would go against freedom of thought.
Taiwan’s democracy needs to be fortified, especially at a time when it faces constant threats from an unfriendly neighbor, Lee said.
However he said that publications produced by private individuals or associations in China would not be subject to censorship or subject to provisions in the proposed amendment.
Lee said that his ministry would consult with members of Taiwan’s publishing associations and industry players to discuss a revision to the law as soon as possible.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: A US Air Force KC-135 tanker came less than 1,000 feet of an EVA plane and was warned off by a Taipei air traffic controller, a report said A US aerial refueling aircraft came very close to an EVA Airways jet in the airspace over southern Taiwan, a military aviation news Web site said. A report published by Alert 5 on Tuesday said that automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) data captured by planfinder.net on Wednesday last week showed a US Air Force KC-135 tanker “coming less than 1,000 feet [305m] vertically with EVA Air flight BR225 as both aircraft crossed path south of Taiwan” that morning. The report included an audio recording of a female controller from the Taipei air traffic control center telling the unidentified aircraft that it was
A series of discussions on the legacy of martial law and authoritarianism are to be held at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this month, featuring findings and analysis by the Transitional Justice Commission. The commission and publisher Book Republic organized the series, entitled “Escaping the Nation’s Labyrinth of Memory: What Authoritarian Symbols and Records Can Tell Us,” to help people navigate narratives through textual analysis and comparisons with other nations. The four-day series is to begin on Thursday next week with a discussion between commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠), Polish-language translator Lin Wei-yun (林蔚昀), and Polish author and artist Pawel Gorecki comparing
MOVING OUT: A former professor said that rent and early education costs in Taipei are the nation’s highest, which makes it difficult for young people to start families The population of Taipei last year fell to the lowest in 23 years due to high rent, more transportation options and the expansion of northern cities into a single metropolis, academics and city officials said on Monday. Data released this month by the Ministry of the Interior showed that the capital was home to 2,602,418 people last year, down 42,623 from 2019. The decline is second only to 1993, when the population fell by 42,828 people, while Taipei’s population was the lowest it has been since 1997. Taipei saw the biggest drop among the six special municipalities, while Taoyuan led the group in
A US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt has entered the South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas,” the US military said yesterday, as tensions between China and Taiwan raise concerns in Washington. US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the strike group entered the South China Sea on Saturday, the same day Taiwan reported a large incursion of Chinese bombers and fighter jets into its air defense identification zone near the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). The US military said the carrier strike group was in the South China Sea, a large part of which