EBC News (東森新聞) has not sought government assistance to retrieve two of its reporters who remain in custody in China after filming Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises earlier this month, a source said yesterday.
They were covering the PLA’s “united sword” drills around Taiwan from April 8 to Monday last week.
CONFRONTATION
Photo: AFP
On the second day of the drills, the reporters on Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, the Chinese island closest to Taiwan proper, were establishing a connection with the news anchor when they were approached by a PLA soldier asking to see their credentials.
The soldier could be heard in the footage saying: “I just need to make sure you’re not a spy.”
EBC yesterday said the reporters are safe and have been in daily communication with the news division.
Photo: Screen grab from YouTube
They are in Xiamen “conducting business” and do not have plans to return at the moment, it said.
‘RESTRICTED RESIDENCE’
However, a person with knowledge of the matter said the reporters were taken into custody by Chinese authorities and were under “restricted residence.”
Although EBC said they have been in contact with the reporters, their actual status is unknown, the source said, adding that the government believes they are being kept from leaving Xiamen.
Their families have not contacted the Mainland Affairs Council or the Straits Exchange Foundation to help secure their release, they said.
DISAPPEARED
Unauthorized filming of PLA activities can result in serious repercussions.
Morrison Lee (李孟居), an unpaid adviser to Pingtung County’s Fangliao Township (枋寮), went missing in 2019 after sending photographs and footage of Chinese paramilitary police amassing on the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong to the Fangliao mayor.
The state-run China Central Television later broadcast footage of Lee confessing to working as a spy. He was sentenced to one year and 10 months in prison, and deprived of political rights for two years.
Although his sentence is over, he has still been unable to return to Taiwan.
The cases should serve as a reminder to Taiwanese reporters that they must be careful when working in China, which does not have freedom of the press, the source said.
Additional reporting by Lin Hsin-ying
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