On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, US-based Freedom House released its annual report on media freedom. Taiwan’s ranking in the 2009 Freedom of the Press survey slipped 11 spots to 43rd place from last year’s 32nd. And after three consecutive years of being ranked as Asia’s freest press, Taiwan conceded that honor to Japan.
Taiwan’s performance over the past year can only be described as disgraceful. It is true that Freedom House still ranks Taiwan as “free,” but over the past year media freedom has regressed conspicuously.
In its international news release, Freedom House noted that “declines in Israel, Italy and Taiwan illustrate that established democracies with traditionally open media are not immune to restricting media freedom.”
The report clearly indicated that the reason Taiwan’s ranking declined is because “media in Taiwan faced assault and growing government pressure.”
A case in point was the visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) six months ago.
The report also included the decline in Taiwan’s press freedom in its key regional findings.
Taiwan’s ranking once made impressive progress in the Freedom House survey. In 2004, the nation’s press freedom ranked 50th worldwide, gradually advancing to 44th in 2005, 35th in 2006, 33rd in 2007 and 32nd last year, replacing Japan as the freest press in Asia.
Now this hard-earned achievement has been sullied by the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), causing media freedom in Taiwan to slip drastically. It is a problem that should be of concern not only to media workers but also the public in general.
Founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, Freedom House aims to be a voice for “democracy and freedom around the world.”
When the survey was conducted earlier this year, the organization dispatched experts to Taiwan for an on-site inspection.
The observation and findings of the in-depth investigation indeed provided penetrating criticism of the current situation.
It is also noteworthy that not only has global press freedom declined for a seventh straight year, but press freedom in Chinese-speaking countries generally fell behind.
China — notorious for having the least free media — failed to uphold its promise to ensure press freedom during the Olympics, and instead “chose to remain the world’s largest repressor of media freedom.”
Singapore, which is ruled by an authoritarian regime, has continued to lag behind in the rankings.
Hong Kong, surprisingly, has been downgraded to “partly free” status, as Beijing exerts obvious influence over media.
On May 4, 1919, the anti-imperialist student movement known as the “May Fourth Movement” launched in China with an eye to establishing democracy.
Now that Chinese-speaking countries have fallen behind in global press freedom, it is clear that there is room for improvement of democracy, human rights and freedom in Chinese cultures.
Since returning to power, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has leaned toward China and, in only one year, the nation’s press freedom has taken a big step backward.
The old saying is indeed true: A leopard never changes its spots.
Lu Shih-hsiang is an adviser to the Taipei Times.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to