One of the top student leaders during the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989 has called for a boycott of the China Times after the wealthy Taiwanese entrepreneur who owns the publication denied the crackdown by the Chinese military constituted a massacre.
Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), chairman and chief executive of the Want Want Group (旺旺集團), which owns the China Times, told the Washington Post in an interview published last Saturday that the crackdown on June 4 was “no massacre.”
Tsai told the Post he had been struck by footage of the lone protester standing in front of a People’s Liberation Army tank — a now iconic image of the crackdown — and added that the fact that the man was not killed was proof that reports of a massacre were false.
Several hundred unarmed protesters, including students, were brutally killed in the government response to the protests.
“I realized that not that many people could really have died,” Tsai said, echoing Beijing’s propaganda in the weeks after the crackdown, which said the tank incident was proof that the military had acted with humanity against the demonstrators.
Wang Dan (王丹), one of the student leaders at Tiananmen Square who now lives in Taiwan, was among many who reacted angrily to Tsai’s remarks.
“Such remarks are effrontery,” Wang wrote in a Tweet on Monday. “From now on, I will never buy a copy of the China Times newspaper.”
Several netizens have also vowed to boycott food products from Tsai’s business chains, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday. At press time last night, a “Resist the Want Want Group” page created on Facebook on Tuesday — whose boycott will continue until April 24 — had attracted 405 followers.
Want Want Group has made its fortune selling food products in China, where it makes 90 percent of its profit. Tsai also runs several hotels in Shanghai, Nanjing, Huai-an and Xining, and he has made various real-estate investments in China.
Tsai, who according to Forbes is Taiwan’s third-wealthiest individual, in 2008 acquired a controlling 51 percent stake in the China Times Group, which owns the Commercial Times, the China Times Weekly magazine, the Want Daily, the English-language Want China Times and China Television Co.
Some China-based commentators also expressed anger at the business tycoon’s denial of the massacre.
“Tsai’s words are illogical,” Mo Zhixu (莫之許), a Beijing-based cybercommentator, told RFA on Tuesday.
“The murders of June 4 cannot be whitewashed by the fact that the young man who blocked the tanks was not killed right away,” he said.
“Why did he say this? Apparently he is trying to present servile flattery to the Chinese Communist Party government. That is completely unnecessary,” Mo said.
Since Tsai’s acquisition of the China Times Group, media watchdogs have observed that the editorial line of the media within his consortium has softened their stance on China, reportedly so that Tsai can ingratiate himself with the Beijing authorities. The businessman denies those claims and says his only aim is to encourage Taiwanese to abandon their fear of doing business with China.
In the same interview with the Washington Post, Tsai also indicated his support for the unification of Taiwan and China, adding that such an outcome was inevitable.
“Whether you like it or not, unification is going to happen sooner or later,” he said, adding that he “really hoped” a swift merger would occur.
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
RSS