Three US congressional members have written to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to protest plans to tear down two shortwave radio towers in Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) and in Greater Tainan.
They say the towers — at least partly built with US funds — may still be needed to broadcast uncensored news into China.
The towers are being used by Falun Gong and its media organization, the Sound of Hope Radio Network, to transmit broadcasts that are critical of the Chinese government and its human rights record.
Photo: Taipei Times
A statement issued by Falun Gong in Washington on Monday said that Radio Taiwan International (RTI) had already begun tearing down the towers in Greater Tainan and that requests from the US Congress to stop the demolition were being ignored.
The statement said that Beijing was putting “huge pressure” on Taiwan to stop shortwave broadcasts aimed at China.
It said that RTI had changed its mission from spreading “freedom and democracy to China” to marketing and promoting Taiwan.
The statement said the towers were built in the 1960s and 1970s, several with funding from the US military.
“RTI plans to close two major radio facilities, Huwei and Tainan substations,” it said.
It said the two radio stations had 28 shortwave radio towers equipped with antennae with a transmission power of at least 2,700 kilowatts and could cover all of China.
“The Chinese Communist Party is very scared about the power of these towers and they want the towers to be demolished,” the statement signed by Sound of Hope Radio Network president Allen Zeng said.
“Any plan to tear down these facilities is premature and should be suspended pending analysis of other potential use of the facilities,” US Representative Frank Wolf wrote in a letter to Ma.
“Any demolitions that would reduce the capability to transmit into China should be halted until alternatives can be fully explored,” US Representative Dana Rohrabacher wrote in another letter to Ma.
US Representative Christopher Smith has also written to the president to express his concern that “any teardown would undermine the purpose for which these facilities were built” and would deprive US broadcasters of a chance to save expenses.
“I believe that any plan to tear down the Tainan and Huwei facilities should be delayed until their strategic utilization by international shortwave broadcasters is fully studied,” Smith said.
RTI Tainan substation director Tseng Wen-san (曾文三) yesterday said the plan to demolish the Greater Tainan facility was made due to a river expansion project and had nothing to do with “the Chinese communists.”
“It is an established policy that the Tian Ma Radio Station [the Tainan substation] will be relocated to Yunlin County’s Baojhong Township (褒忠),” he said, adding: “After the relocation to Yunlin, no changes will be made to our international radio broadcasts.”
Additional reporting by Tsai Wen-chu
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS