Reports that hundreds of staff at the Beijing News are on strike are intriguing indeed. The reason for the strike was the removal of editor-in-chief Yang Bin (
The incident shows that press freedom has not just failed to increase under President Hu Jintao (
One example of such control is the blocking of access to virtually all news Web sites from Taiwan. This means that there is no access in China to either yahoo.com.tw or even online Taiwanese bookstores such as books.com.tw.
The move against the Beijing News follows the sacking of the editor-in-chief at the Southern Metropolitan News for running a story on the government's punishment of a Guangzhou provincial official after a mining accident.
It was not the first time that an editor-in-chief at the Beijing News was removed for irritating the government with its news coverage. Yang's predecessor was thrown in jail on the grounds of having an "economic problem."
The good news to come out of this is that Chinese readers are becoming more conscious of -- and dissatisfied with -- the way that their rights are being trampled on by their government. It takes guts to go on strike over such matters in China -- where police can throw people in jail on groundless charges of threatening the national security, and all in the absence of due process.
The reason cited by the government for the personnel change at the Beijing News was "political security" -- a typically lame excuse used to arrest people or suppress opponents or perceived irritants. Some believe that stories published by the Beijing News in June last year relating to an incident of rural unrest that led to the death of six villagers and more than 100 injured may have been the last straw. The newspaper had been warned by the government already for its candid coverage.
The popularity of newspapers known for publishing critiques of social issues and coverage of social discontent suggests that there is strong demand for knowledge among average Chinese. Beijing News itself is very popular among intellectuals and white-collar workers.
Such a demand for free information by the general public is typically a precursor to further political liberalization. This demand will only grow stronger as China continues to open up economically and increasing amounts of information from the outside world become accessible.
The Chinese leadership is manifestly anxious about allowing a more autonomous press to develop, which explains the recent clampdown on the news media. The interesting question is how long the drive for more freedom and less government interference can be suppressed by the government without bringing the formidable amount of unrest occurring in the countryside into the cities.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of