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.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS