People who fancy riddles and puzzles should delight in attempting to unravel the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) sale of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC).
The BCC was sold by the KMT on Dec. 24, 2005, to China Times Group subsidiary Jungli Investment Co (
The KMT sealed the deal -- reportedly worth NT$9.3 billion (US$281.6 million) -- just one day before the deadline for political parties and the military to dispose of their media assets.
Then, as critics of the KMT panned the party over the lack of transparency in the deal, the news broke last month that former UFO Radio president Jaw Shaw-kong (
Jaw's acquisition of BCC raises the question as to why he would buy the controlling stake of the broadcasting firm from Hua Hsia and not from the BCC's owner, Jungli Investment Co.
BCC vice president Lee Chien-jung (
The dubious relations between Jungli Investment Co and Hua Hsia Investment Holding Co has led many to question whether the two companies and the KMT are still one big family after all.
If this is true, the KMT has broken its promise to pull out of the media industry.
And the fun continues.
Earlier this week, two Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers revealed that the presidents of the four companies that now own BCC all have links to the UFO Network, which is owned by Jaw. While Jaw insisted that the purchase had been carried out in accordance with the law, the news nonetheless raised many eyebrows.
The BCC has refused to shed light on the financial details of the deal, as have Jaw and the KMT.
The furtive behavior of all parties involved in the deal makes one wonder what it is they are trying to hide.
If the whole deal exists in name only, then the KMT has obviously violated the Radio and Television Act (
When KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
If he wants to win the trust of Taiwanese and prove that he is true to his word, it is not too late for him to step forward and explain the financial transaction surrounding the sale of the KMT's three media outlets -- and Jaw's purchase of the BCC -- in detail.
The more one attempts to solve this conundrum, the more questions arise. Meanwhile, the National Communications Commission (NCC) sits idle, failing to uphold its already compromised responsibility of maintaining order in the broadcasting industry.
The NCC should get its act together and examine the details of the BCC deal, which involves issues that pertain to the management of the media, concentration of shares and government-owned radio frequencies.
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
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
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS