The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus on Tuesday claimed that the Taipei Times, other local English-language newspapers and international agencies are bowing to pressure from the Chen administration by suppressing coverage of the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal and other government mishaps.
KMT Legislator Su Chi (
Su claims that he is a "long-time reader" of the Taipei Times, though this is doubtful, given that he missed every one of our numerous reports on the KRTC debacle. Perhaps, as a rookie at the Legislative Yuan and facing tough competition from the likes of grandstanding independent Legislator Chiu Yi (
Well, he sure has this time -- by making a complete fool of himself. And not just because the pro-unification China Post was on his list of targets.
This newspaper has not only reported on the KRTC scandal since day one, it also ran a full-page special report on the controversy on Monday. We also covered the arrest of Tu Shi-san (杜十三) on page 3 of Tuesday's edition, which Su claimed we failed to do. This did not stop him from propagating his conspiracy theory that the Taipei Times is attempting to play down the DPP's poor performance in government.
This is nonsense. Over the years this newspaper has taken to task any number of Democratic Progressive Party icons for their poor judgement and lack of achievement, including President Chen Shui-bian, Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Chen's coterie of tainted advisers.
For Su to make one false accusation is forgivable, but how does a professor and former Government Information Office head -- and key figure at the KMT think tank that sent the risible Bulletgate pamphlet to the US Congress -- get it wrong again and again?
Su criticizes us for having a "clearly pro-green" tinge and an overt political stance.
This need not concern him. The Taipei Times cares to ally itself with neither the Chen administration nor the KMT. The people of Taiwan and Taiwan's national interest are the primary object of our editorial support. And it is the right of any media organization to express its opinions, a right that also applies to pro-China media outlets -- whom Su refuses to criticize.
Indeed, Su conveniently forgets the good old days under KMT rule when members of his own party's Central Standing Committee -- the KMT's highest decision-making body -- served on the management of two major Chinese-language newspapers, the United Daily News and the China Times.
If Su is right that the Taipei Times is the main source of information on Taiwan for overseas governments, think tanks and media outlets, then we take this responsibility very seriously: Our job is to report what happens here and to communicate both mainstream and fringe thinking to the international community.
We also make mistakes, and we correct them as they occur. It is hoped that Su will likewise show some grace and apologize to the Taipei Times for his comments, if only to soothe readers who fear a resurgence of pan-blue-camp shooting of messengers that once prevailed under seasoned spin doctors like him.
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
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