What if one day Taiwanese journalists were to get paid in yuan and cover Taiwanese news exclusively for Chinese media outlets while employing Chinese “product placement” in their news reports? What would happen to the voice of Taiwanese if public opinion were to be silenced by the Chinese government?
This is not a hypothetical question, because it is happening right now.
Want Want China Holdings Ltd chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) and his family acquired the China Times Group media syndicate in November. Tsai, who answers to officials from various provinces and cities in China, could report that he had “followed the directives from his superiors to report on the prosperity of the motherland.” The acquisition did not cause much of a stir at China Times or the media industry because employees received their paychecks and bonuses on time. They probably thought: “What’s so bad about that?”
China has spent tens of billions of dollars to get a foothold in the global media. The investment in Taiwan is just a drop in the bucket. Flushed with cash, China can easily feast on the financially troubled Taiwanese media like a wolf among a flock of sheep while the Taiwanese government stands idly by.
The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is leaning toward Chinese news agencies like Xinhua opening branches in Taiwan. Xinhua is a state news agency that aggressively pushed Beijing’s “united front” tactics in Hong Kong before its handover to China. If Xinhua were to open a branch in Taiwan, what are the chances that it will not do the same thing here? “Entering the island, entering the households and entering the hearts of the public” are the major goals of China’s psychological and media warfare in Taiwan.
Taiwan is a capitalist society, so commercial media outlets are mainly driven by profit. It is therefore very easy to make these outlets change their stance. The Taiwan Advertisers’ Association used to seek order in the media chaos, but now it has become used to controlling the media in Taiwan to avoid angering their Chinese bosses.
What is the biggest threat to Taiwan’s media outlets? It is that they will not be able to report anything that goes against Chinese interests. Many Taiwanese media outlet owners have colluded with China. What’s worse is that politicians and businesspeople are joining hands in an attempt to take over the Taiwanese media industry. There will soon be no space left for freedom, yet Taiwanese continue to think they have a thorough grasp of the situation.
Taiwanese media outlets seem to be struggling to seize the last chance to express their opinion as Beijing’s shadow looms ever closer and their freedom of expression is vanishing quickly. Will freedom become but a memory for future generations?
Leon Chuang is chairman of the Association of Taiwan Journalists.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG.
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