The Tourism Bureau yesterday rejected a demand from a Chinese travel agency to ban videos with anti-Communist content on tour buses transporting Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan.
Any videos can be shown on tour buses as long as they have legal copyright and their content does not violate “good morals,” the bureau said.
It does not matter if the videos involve anti-Communist content, it added.
The issue came to the fore after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) yesterday published a story about a Chinese tour group visiting Taiwan last month being shown a Britishproduced documentary about former Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) while on a tour bus.
It is customary in Taiwan for tour bus drivers to show movies during trips.
According to an investigation by the Tourism Bureau, only one elderly member of the group was dissatisfied with the video, complaining that the representation of Mao in the documentary was different from what he believed it to be.
The Taiwanese guide consulted the other tour group members and was told that they wanted to continue watching the video.
After receiving the tourist’s complaint, the Chinese travel agency organizing the tour demanded that the Taiwanese travel agency stop showing anti-Communist documentaries on tour buses carrying Chinese tourists, the Liberty Times reported, adding that it also demanded that Taiwanese guides refrain from expressing points of view different from their Chinese clients.
The Tourism Bureau said it would ask Chinese tourism authorities to look into the incident and respect the pluralism and freedom of speech in Taiwan.
“Taiwan is a free and democratic society, and as long as the rights of others are not infringed upon, Chinese tourists should not only abide by Taiwan’s laws, but should also respect different opinions and ideologies,” the bureau said.
According to Tourism Bureau statistics, nearly 4 million Chinese visited Taiwan last year, by far the largest group among the nation’s 9 million visitors last year.
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
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
LEAP FORWARD: The new tanks are ‘decades more advanced than’ the army’s current fleet and would enable it to compete with China’s tanks, a source said A shipment of 38 US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks — part of a military procurement package from the US — arrived at the Port of Taipei early yesterday. The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019. The Ministry of National Defense at the time allocated NT$40.5 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the purchase. To accommodate the arrival of the tanks, the port suspended the use of all terminals and storage area machinery from 6pm last night until 7am this morning. The tanks are expected to be deployed at the army’s training
RSS