To understand the stark differences between China and Taiwan, you need look no further than the nearest newsstand.
In Taiwan's young democracy, you will find newspapers with an array of editorial positions covering the political spectrum. You will see articles accusing the nation's highest officials and most powerful magnates of corruption, lechery, vice and incompetence. You will see energetic and unruly activity that may be undisciplined and unprofessional, but nevertheless has all the hallmarks of a free press.
Go now to a newsstand in China.
You will find articles lauding the accomplishments of unelected bureaucrats. You will find pieces extolling the intricacies of official policies. You will find xenophobic rants aimed at inflaming nationalist sentiment. In short, you will find evidence of all that is frightening and detestable in a totalitarian regime.
Yesterday, that detestable regime sentenced a journalist to five years in prison for allegedly spying for Taiwan. His real crime, as everyone knows, was trying to write accurately about China.
Ching Cheong (
Since Ching was tried in secret, and no one knows what "evidence" was used to convict him, it is difficult to contest the case against him. But it is not difficult to see that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had an urgent and unambiguous reason to try to discredit Ching and stop his activities.
According to the CCP's mouthpiece news agency, Xinhua, China largely based its claim that Ching was a spy on "evidence" that he had met with members of a think tank -- which the reports described as a front for espionage -- when he was a reporter in Taiwan. Xinhua says that Ching took money from the think tank in exchange for providing "state secrets." There is no way to check the veracity of these claims, and it is unlikely that more details will be forthcoming.
Given the nature of the Chinese regime, it is irrelevant if Ching violated the law. The laws that Beijing applies to such matters are so sweeping that they could be applied to any journalist who writes about anything at any time.
Every so often, commentators and pundits will wax eloquent and talk about the "inevitable" slow shift toward an open, democratic society that they claim China is beginning to undergo. They point to critical blogs or articles that appear from time to time as evidence of this shift.
This ignores reality. Such criticisms appear because technology has changed, not because the nature of the Chinese regime has changed. A journalist in China can write honestly and critically for a short time, and these words will spread like wildfire on the Internet. But in the end, the plodding government goons will show up at the door, shut it all down and whisk the writer away.
Reporters Without Borders says that China has 32 journalists and 50 "Internet campaigners" in jail. Ching is just the latest in a long series of persecuted journalists. The CCP isn't changing.
Singapore Press Holdings Ltd, the firm that owns the Straits Times, has called for Beijing to release Ching because he has chronic health problems.
It isn't likely that support from the Taipei Times would add value to this effort in China's eyes, but we do call on the international community -- especially the US and the EU -- to increase pressure on China for its oppression of journalists and to push for Ching's release.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS