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.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS