Angered by certain Taiwanese politicians and the many media institutions that are biased in favor of them, a group of students from National Taiwan University and Shih Hsin University recently decided to put their education to use by making a series of satirical videos called Special Report. The students raised money from others who shared their political views -- including at least one goose meat vendor -- and they spent their summer vacation producing a series of videos that they hoped might become as popular as the award-winning lampoon programs that appear on Taiwanese television.
The primary targets at whom these young social critics took aim were legislators belonging to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) -- along with TV anchors and journalists who support them. They criticized a few Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians as well.
The students controlled every aspect of the videos' production, from scriptwriting to camera work. When it came to casting, they used only actors and actresses who could speak Hoklo, also known as Taiwanese. And they did extensive research of newspaper, magazine and TV reports so that they could satirize the public figures described therein. The students understood very well how to make a video, but they did not understand the political environment in which the Taiwanese media operate. Only three years have passed since Taiwan underwent a major political transformation, and over 90 percent of Taiwan's media is still controlled by pan-blue forces. As a result, Taiwan Television, which had initially pledged to air the videos, changed its mind under political pressure from the KMT and the PFP. The students then sought air time at other TV stations, but they were turned away. Finally the Southern Taiwan Society, a pro-green political organization, agreed to help them sell the videos.
The students also might not have understood the reaction that their work would provoke. PFP chairman James Soong (
On Monday afternoon, the Government Information Office directed government agencies to stop confiscating the videos. In effect, they proclaimed that Special Report was perfectly legal.
In the midst of all this controversy, the people of Taiwan should take the opportunity to reflect on the reasons that the students who made these videos were so discontented to begin with.
Consider ethical standards in politics. Commonwealth magazine, a respected pro-blue business publication, recently published the results of a public opinion poll that focused on the moral integrity of politicians. The poll found that Soong -- who was the central figure in the Chung Hsing Bills Finance embezzlement scandal -- had a higher reputation for ethical behavior than did President Chen Shui-bian (
Special Report can be seen as a kind of public counter-force to the sorry state of political ethics in Taiwan. Even though the mainstream media shunned the videos as long as they could, the Taiwanese people have made their feelings clear by snapping up copies of the videos all across the island.
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS