Taipei prosecutors yesterday dismissed a defamation case brought by Want Want China Times Media Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) against three media figures who said that his “colorless awakening” agenda was Chinese propaganda to force Taiwan to submit to Chinese rule.
Former National Assembly member Huang Peng-hsiao (黃澎孝), writer Wang Hao (汪浩) and political commentator Huang Chuang-hsia (黃創夏) were named as defendants in the case after in 2019 they said on political talk shows that Tsai’s ideas for a “colorless awakening” were straight out of China’s “united front” playbook, and said that Tsai allegedly had close ties to the leadership in Beijing.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that the case would not proceed, as “the defendants had a basis for their opinions, and the topic was of public interest.”
On ERA TV programs in June and September 2019, Wang and the two Huang’s said that Tsai’s 10-point agenda included “recognizing that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the same family, are from the same root and ethnicity, and that Taiwanese are Chinese.”
It also included “helping Taiwanese to understand the Chinese Communist Party”; “discussing a process and model for unification with China”; and “support for Chinese companies to directly invest in Taiwan,” they said at the time.
The agenda was lifted directly from China’s “united front” work, while Want Want’s support for then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) was because Han, who was Kaohsiung mayor at the time, in 2018 became the first politician to sign Tsai’s pledge, Huang Peng-hsiao told the TV show.
Wang and Huang Chuang-hsia expressed similar opinions on a later show, prompting Tsai to name the three as defendants.
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