Beijing authorities ordered Chinese media, Internet portals and Chinese tourists not to comment on yesterday’s presidential election in Taiwan, BBC Monitoring reported on Friday.
The Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily reported that the Central Propaganda Department had ordered Chinese media and Internet portals to rely solely on official media reports and refrain from commenting on the election, the report said.
Under the directive, media outlets could only carry reports by Xinhua news agency and China Central Television (CCTV) and were barred from carrying their own commentary on the election, the Oriental Daily quoted several senior Chinese media executives as saying.
Popular Internet portals such as Sina, Sohu and Tencent, which during the electoral campaign had been allowed surprising, if not entirely free, coverage of the election, have now been instructed to “limit” their coverage, the report said.
The Sun, another Hong Kong-based newspaper, reported on Tuesday that a sudden 30 percent drop in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan may have been an attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to limit exposure to Taiwanese democracy while freeing seats on airplanes so that China-based Taiwanese businesspeople, who tend to favor President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), could return to Taiwan to vote.
Chinese tourists in Taiwan were also ordered not to speak with media.
Canada’s Globe and Mail yesterday also reported that some groups of Chinese tousists had been instructed by Chinese authorities to remain in their hotel rooms on election day.
The Central News Agency on Monday also reported that the Taiwan Affairs Office had informed Taiwanese journalists based in Beijing that a routine press conference scheduled for Wednesday had been postponed. It did not give reasons, reports said.
In a commentary, the CCP-run Global Times said the significance of Taiwan’s election had “gradually declined” as “rationality is growing while extremism is on the wane in Taiwan,” BBC Monitoring reported.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant